I haven't seen it mentioned so I'll throw this in as something that changed since the Covid era - Disney Springs transportation boats between Marketplace, center, and West End. Though security is technically the reason, wanting all guests routed in through two main entry points - I think reduced staffing post-Covid is a contributory factor. West End certainly has enough room to add security kiosks and metal detectors, but they'd need more security staff and more boat staff to keep that running...so it never came back.
A lot of the cuts likely aren't DIRECTLY related to Covid - indeed some of the cuts may have already been considered - but Covid was a huge cost hit for Disney, so it was a strong contributing factor to go ahead and trim various smaller services and staff that were never restored after the fact. Covid was the 'excuse' to make operational changes, cuts, and cutbacks that would have likely been tremendously unpopular, but doing it during Covid allowed the blame to shift to the disease and not the management.
So many of the changes that we have now, since Covid, such as lost extra magic hours, the park reservation system, Magical Express, resort delivery for store purchases, shifting FastPass to a paywall system, mobile ordering emphasis, big staff and entertainment cuts, and a huge reduction in the Epcot remodeling plans - may have occurred or may not, but if theses things happened any other time but Covid they would have raised a much bigger storm of criticism.
