Not only that, but trust from a self contained community is not the same as safe for the general public outside of context. Imagine asking for a summary of the Gamestop shortsqueeze and getting an answer from Superstonks.

They may also have missed the part where unlocking past post for rewrite allowed APIcalipse refugees use shredder bots to destroy a good part of the comments that actually held any value, replace a bunch of others with nonsense, and kicking out invested human curators (mods) in favor of generic button pushers ("power mods") opened the floodgates to random BS, propaganda, and misinformation.

It has always been only a signal for popularity. It's the same on every other site with similar systems, including ones that have existed long before reddit. Even in the early 2000s, there were endless reminders that the upvote button was not meant as an "I agree" button, but that's not how it's being used.