alt Hacker NewsAgreed. It is frowned upon in public discourse to be an armchair psychiatrist, but I am seeing this implosion as the second-order effect of some condition afflicting Matt's mind. This situation can be seen in mechanical terms, the end-user effects like vendor-lock in, legal conflicts, profit and loss... or maybe Matt just woke up one day and, for some reason, felt like he's had it with everything. For some reason nobody knows. And also happened to be a few clicks away from the WordPress.org admin console.
I am reminded of Kayne West. I think some people latched on to what he said in a literal sense instead of just ignoring it outright as the rants of a diagnosed bipolar person. To be sure what he said was deplorable at face value in a public space. But behind all the dialogue, the entire event might have been nothing more significant than the inevitable progression of a disease, one which leaves consciousness just intact enough to keep one recognizable, yet also compels one to say the most polarizing things.
Also related, an article about one of Cloudflare's founders who was afflicted with a neurodegenerative disease that largely destroyed his personality. It went unnoticed for so long because his actions were taken at face value - he was just tired and disengaged from daily life - instead of as originating from a disease of the brain.