I believe the FIA cheated us out of any champion at all.
The FIA has simply put on a little masquerade for the sake of the cameras and moneymakers. The FIA has broken its own rules so much, and so comprehensively, that I cannot consider either Max or Lewis to be FIA champion. On two separate occasions, both of their lives were endangered in service to the FIA's misconduct. Both were cheated out of their rightful desert and several drivers including both title aspirants nearly got injured as a result. From my reckoning, Max is not World Champion because the moment the FIA decided to pre-select a champion (something that, on retrospective evidence, appears to have happened after Silverstone and before Spa), there was no longer a championship to win in the legal sense of the word.
At this point, any fan who believes a driver (recognised aspirant or otherwise) was champion purely because their heart said so has more credibility with me than the FIA (or anyone who cites the points table as evidence). Fans can write their champions on their own law, don't need or benefit from the FIA's say-so... ...and are in no way bound by the FIA's misconduct. However, that's champion with a small "c", not a capital "C"; any other fan has equal authority to declare a champion on the same basis.
This is what the FIA did to F1 - apparently in cold blood.
Quite a lot of people care - several people I know face-to-face (generally the ones who switched off during the latter stretches of the season, a few of whom admitted to watching the last race anyway) have told me they're done with F1. The only F1 fan I know face-to-face who was unmoved by the whole mess was someone who hasn't watched any F1 races (only Drive to Survive) and hasn't been persuaded to watch any by what she saw on social media. This probably doesn't help the moneymakers much
The audience came, saw F1 faceplant... ...and mostly are going. It's Indy 2005 writ large.
Incidentally, John S, Masi handed out a 2-place grid penalty to Max Verstappen in Qatar, which should have been reversed. (Granted, I feel Max should have been black-flagged for cumulative infractions elsewhere, so probably not much help to him, but even in futile situations, governance integrity is vital). Not to mention his precedent for Mercedes' protest being thrown out at the end of Abu Dhabi of "play on" meaning that he's apparently allowed to do whatever he wants now regardless of what the regulations say he must do.
I don't get to walk away like most of my face-to-face friends that were into F1 have. If the FIA continues like this, drivers will get injured or die from the misconduct. Already, there's the risk of F1 teams quitting and billing the FIA their exit fees. In any of these situations, lawyers may end up contacting me as witness, given precedent - and I must make sure I know enough about the situation to not waste their time.