To directly quote the developers.
“He’s a little bit insensitive in terms of how he treats outsiders sometimes. So we wanted to lighten that up and make it a little bit more fitting for the world we live in now.”
But like... that was his character arc???? He's rude or mocking to others but then learns to not be a dick and a good friend??? They just completely took away the plot of his social link and character arc.
And also they said they will not add Yosuke romance by saying
"We were thinking if we did Yosuke, we kinda have to add all the other male characters as well. And if we did that, like that's a lot of work. I don't know if we could handle"
Which is a bullshit excuse because no one is asking for the other male characters' romance??? Yosuke romance has been in the works and been somethings thats edged for over a decade. So they took away his main interesting character plot and just shut down the other possible thing to create and hype around Yosuke.