seems like their complaints are in two areas: bureaucracy to register, and needing to respond to abuse reports. Which is what I said.

They complain about hiring a moderation team to respond to abuse reports? How are they doing it now? Do they not respond?

Compliance certification costs money - lots of it. The laws also require proactive scanning of uploaded material, not just responding to complaints, and require a person to be declared liable for mistakes.

Gone are the says of paying a couple hundred a year for a host and a vBulletin license. The new costs are many thousands plus permanent liability, and no thanks - that's way more than I'm going to do for a group of enthusiasts online.