That was part of the fun of it for me–a puzzle to solve while also riding your bike.
Or the problem could be solved by people in the events chilling out about it. It’s a decision that someone makes, to care enough about the event to get upset by late-join, coffee stop, etc. They could just as easily decide to not care that much about it. It’s really quite easy. But it requires letting go of the idea that their way is the only reasonable way. That’s the part people don’t want to do.
So they were provoked by people complaining about the late join option? If so, then yeah they should shout them down.
You have to admit no need for that tone.
Edit: well now that sentence sounds weird after your edit, Chris, lemme change 
That guy had seen the complaining before–we can assume that without trouble, right? So what sort of complaints were directed at him on his last time through? Probably doesn’t justify that tone to a different group of riders, no. But if he was getting abuse, the tone is understandable to some degree.
I really dont have a problem with his tone, it wasn’t that bad IMO. Trolling a little, yeah sure, but that is fine.
A little? A lot!
Last year, I didn’t modify the amount of riding I was doing during a workout. I was just having fun gaming the system to see how many spins I could get in my hour, hour and a half, whatever workout. There are some people who seem to think that you’re ‘cheating yourself’ because you’re not riding as much. I was probably riding more during those weeks last year. I’d decide on an hour workout, and then say ‘okay, I can fit a couple more spins in here’ and go another half hour, hour, etc.
You can have that fun again next week, since the fastest riders will finish Jurassic Coast well within 30 minutes.
See that’s what I’m looking for. Perfect time for some freeloader ruining of the spirit of whatever so I can get a digital prize thingie that is worth exactly as much as someone else’s higher place in the ‘standings’ that I’ll be ruining 
What about Zwift extends the coffee-stop to 30 minutes then you can knock over two birds with one stone, coffee stops and late joining?
All for it. That would make it much easier to get spins in while I’m at work
That’s what that guy who posted in your chat did, isn’t it?
I might not use both, myself. I mostly (but not exclusively) use coffee stop when I see people complaining about coffee stop. I do the Big Spin rides as part of working out, which means I’m still putting in a lot of work, so I’m less likely to want to combine both. And I know I’m outing myself as not hard core or something probably to say things like this, but the way I ride these events might not be for anyone else and they should do their own thing within the rules of the system
But won’t it only give you 30 seconds, even with the pedal assistance, it’s maybe a minute. Not enough to be worth the bother.
Alternatively just give people the option to spend 25,000 drops and they get a bot that can do 30 minutes for them at a steady pace. Then that helps to solve the “problem” of people having too many drops that I’ve seen written about before.
A different tack in future would be to put these events on longer point-to-point routes 2 or 3 spinners per route, say “Accelerate to Elevate” and have the final two on ADZ, one half way up and the final one just before the top of ADZ. Less complicated.
Embrace the zen. Let people do things that seem dumb to you.
I raced Games, then did the start of a big spin, quit to do some stretching while the pack did Box Hill, and late joined again as they hit the top. I’m fairly confident this impacted no other people.
Yes, that is the secret to it. Start hard, quit, rejoin, and spin, baby spin.
“I’m baaaaaaack!” 
As Paul says, it helps people who want to ride together find each other in the pack. I don’t see that sort of chat too often, and as it’s proximity-based it’s of variable use in public chat. But it can be useful in direct messages between friends.
I’ve ridden events where positions weren’t shown, and as I recall a lot of people were upset about them being hidden.
People having lots of drops isn’t the problem, the problem is that there isn’t enough useful stuff to spend them on so people accrue millions of drops.
Just did big spin with no spin at the end.
There can be quite a delay from crossing the finish line to the actual spin, maybe you should just have waited longer. But even when working supposedly normally, it’s long enough that at least I started wondering if it is working at all and thought about ending the activity already.