This is always a fundamental issue with any corporate decision. No matter how shitty the thing you plan to do, so long as you communicate it clearly, transparently, in advance, and get your side of the story out there first, your justification (even if its bullshit, which it will be), you have a chance of not shredding your reputation and pissing off your entire customer base.

It is, as you say, basic tact. But it's also basic management, basic PR, basic communication, basic every single skill you would expect anyone above the paygrade of janitor to have.

But it turns out that at Medium, only the janitors know what they're doing.