while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.
This, right here, is the insane bit that shows no understanding for the complexities of either hosting servers or programming. Now if they had limited that in any way to games that require the online component only for some sort of license check that would make sense but they haven’t. They expect the publisher to somehow turn a game from a state that requires online servers into one that does not and 99% of the comments in this thread and others on the initiative show that gamers do not understand the amount of effort that requires.
Now if they had demanded a removal of any online license check/DRM mechanism from games that only require the online connection for that, sure, that would have been fine.
Or, more aimed at the cultural preservation aspect, if they had demanded that game publishers should release all source code and assets before killing off a game so the community can develop some solution to keep it running, that would have made sense, even if it would have been hard to achieve politically.
However none of that nuance is in there, the whole initiative seems to be developed and supported by gamers who have never written a line of code or run a server that wasn’t specifically designed to be run by laymen.
Not to mention that I wouldn’t be surprised if e.g. Tesla employees wouldn’t join a union because they fear repercussions from their giant man baby of a boss, not because unions don’t appeal to them in general.