footnote 3: And by extension: any feature that speeds up the audio or video we consume
I disagree that speeding up something is the same thing at all. Playing something at a constant rate (faster or slower) still maintains the editorial choices that the author was talking about.
I speed up plenty of things I listen to, and it's not (primarily) to get through them quicker.
Across the world it's the case that city folk tend to speak quicker than their rural countrymen. American speak slower, on average, than Brits. And that's fine! However, I find it hard to maintain focus when the speech is too slow - so speeding it up allows me to enjoy it like intended.
I definitely agree that the trim silence feature sound awful.
Arguably, the fix should be to "it" since anon is a utility account, not a user.