A lot of users use the official app and are on new Reddit, and the only "disruption" that they noticed was the protests themselves. They have no idea the damage Reddit has done to moderators and may not even notice the resulting decline in content quality as the smaller subset of people who post and moderate the most wander away to newer pastures.
But over time, they will notice. More and more subreddits will become the domain of uninterested powermods and repost bots. It takes time for a giant to fall, Digg didn't turn into Reddit overnight.