As soon as spez doubled down it should have been obvious that anyone who thought the protest could possibly get them to reverse the change was delusional.
Lemmy use skyrocketed as people fled reddit in droves, especially mods and content creators. Bot spam is at an all time high as mods lost their third party tools to deal with it.
Reddit isn't dead but the protest and exodus is just one more grievous wound to them that will keep effecting them over time. When Digg died and people fled to Reddit, Digg didn't cease to exist. Digg still exists like myspace still exists. Social media deaths are slow and protracted, and end with a whimper rather than a bang.
I'd hardly classify it as a defeat, even though success may be stretching things.
Also, the main article declaring it a failure was written by Gizmodo, who has a track record of pandering to advertisers and being slimy. They also used to be owned by the same group as Reddit, iirc. Basically they had purpose in demoralizing.