I hesitate to disagree with careful, because he’s usually correct, but the OP says the rumour is they’re going to stop collecting hours, not just change the method of collection. And he was apparently correct last time. And it seems to me the organisation is experiencing a slow motion collapse. I agree with truth b known, this is the next natural step, and probably to avoid legal trouble, but will likely have huge unintended consequences.
How will the organisation function without the carrot of privileges and the stick of deletions to keep everyone in line? For many sisters their status as pioneer is their badge of identity and their only way of gaining any sort of recognition in the religion. Take that away and will they be bothered to keep going?
It will accelerate the ongoing organisational collapse, if true.