As soon as I saw the subject line, my first thought was, I bet this is Tenkar.
I'm semi-plugged into this since I do a fair bit with classic D&D. I say "semi" because I don't care about the industry or WotC but I can't help from hearing about it. WotC is in a more precarious position than they generally have been in the past and they've done a fair bit to alienate their current fan base. Their product will continue to be their product and it is very much not an OSR product. WotC's D&D is now more like a video game on paper than an actual roleplaying game. OSR is the opposite of this. They can't do OSR without further alienating their current market (and they can't afford to lose any more of their current market). Whatever they do to bring the OSR into their game will be superficial, at best. Virtually everyone in the OSR scene will be able to see through it, too. WotC recently bought themselves an "ethics award" and OSR YTers turned that around almost immediately. For a lot of folks, they just have their blinders on when it comes to WotC and even seeing their label is an automatic nope. The whole bit Tenkar mentions with the WotC people playing 1e? That's just WotC wagging the dog. I think Shadowdark scared them. By all accounts, Shadowdark is considered to be a bridge between 5e and the OSR. It's not quite either, but can be a gateway for people getting tired of 5e. And frankly, it's just a fad in the OSR scene compared to other systems. It also made over a mil on kickstarter. Those are numbers WotC notices. I also think Stranger Things' weak launch scared them, but that's another story.
It's not just the COVID bubble that burst, but the bubble for such a large industry player in such a small hobby has burst. Add to that really bad choices (OGL, DM's Guild, the movie, VTT) and staffing problems (the good talent quitting, layoffs, executive "resignations"), it's not looking good. I bet this is going to play out a lot like the 2008 subprime crisis, except it's only going to affect Hasbro/WotC, while the rest of the world and even the hobby will be fine.
As for Tenkar, don't get me wrong. I love Tenkar and he's a respectable guy in the scene. But, he's part of the Lake Geneva crowd and that scene has a pretty mixed relationship with the Seattle crowd (i.e. WotC). There is no way that WotC is bringing, of all things, AD&D back into the next edition. And, if they somehow do, I'm willing to put money on WotC really screwing it up like they've done with everything else.
