An open world game is something you immerse yourself in and you learn as you go. It is 100% incompatible with strict “win conditions” for every instance.

I don't see how this is about win conditions. The game communicated the consequences of your action poorly. That is on the game, not on the player. There is a reason why one of the first type of mods coming out for Fallout 4 were mods that replaced the often times misleading 3-word response prompts with the actual lines that are behind those prompts; because in a game where you need to interact a lot with NPCs, it is crucial to be able to predict how your attempt at interacting is going to be received. Vanilla Fallout 4 failed at that and as it seems, RDR2 fails at this as well.

This has been the best take I've seen on my issue with the game so far. Cuz you're right, I'm not super hot on open world games. Saying that, I did indeed take the whole experience as a learning moment but the game in general just didn't keep my interest afterwards. That was just the most memorable part of the game in my brief time trying it out.

And look, while I completely understand that not every game is gonna hand hold (I honestly prefer they don't), I do expect some sort of in-game example or..hell, even some side dialogue saying that could happen that could still be fully in-world and immersive. The game is huge, it's gonna have some flaws here and there, and at the end of the day it just wasn't for me. And me having an issue with a small part of the game has clearly rubbed some people the wrong way, and me the wrong way in their response.