The corollary is that while 40K pays attention to what its fans want and tries to give it to them—after all, that's where the money is —those creators also aren't afraid of the fanbase in the way that Star Wars has repeatedly proven to be. The setting is in many ways surprisingly progressive: Female characters are present in positions of power, gender nonconforming individuals pop up with some regularity, and a deep mistrust of arbitrary authority is baked into 40K's DNA. The chuds might bitch and moan, but the setting recently retconned its all-male Custodes (the corpse-Emperor's demigod bodyguards) into a mixed-gender force, and nobody seems particularly fearful of losing said chuds. If you don't like female Custodes, read something else, or don't. We'll survive.

I was surprised to a) see W40K mentioned in something as sport-y and mainstream as Defector and b) that the article built up to addressing the freedom it gives its' creators within books and other media to try new things and c) that there's a media company out there actively willing to give the finger to "the chuds"