While everyone of us has different degrees of hypocrisy in us, i'm pretty sure those are not the same people saying the same two contradicting things at the same time, as they were different types of people saying them at different times. When a new game or sequel with an established fan base comes, it's very obvious the fans will be the more vocal during those periods. When scandals regarding a certain company is highlighted, then its detractors will be the more vocal during those periods.
I don't think its honest to label the entire community like that just based on something that can easily be a flawed point of view as you can't know who exactly said them.
There were a good amount of cases where backlash did change the outcome. We would've had paid mods on steam had its userbase not expressed their opinions back when Valve and Bethesda wanted to implement said paid mods.
