Abbreviated public subscriber counts are gradually rolling out starting next week. We heard a lot of feedback from the community following our announcement in May – we’ve updated our original post with more info here → https://yt.be/help/LF4J
"We heard a lot of feedback from the community" Well, it seems it clearly isn't the case. The majority of people overwhelmingly didn't ask for this and have recently asked to make this an optional choice for creators as some have the option to private the subcount.