What was the merge?  Quite simple, it was the most profound display of centralization a cryptocurrency could ever achieve.  While lesser tokens might have made the switch from POW to POS with little to no fanfare, the Ethereum merge caught the attention of the entire GPU mining community, all the ETH investors or traders, and even the media.

It was a showcase of centralization because the whole world got to see what happens to a crypto when the very wealthy and/or influential holders of that crypto decide to make radical changes.  It was bombastic and unholy.

Those GPU miners never cared for Ethereum, by the way.  I don't believe I ever heard a YT mining channel like RPM, Voskcoin, son of a tech, and that bunch talk about how valuable ethereum is as a coin.  Dollars to donuts they either mined to an exchange or used an auto switcher like 2miners.