There’s still/always the optimistic choice in that their wording specifically was:
Disabled, not deleted or removed. Granted it’s a bit of a stretch, but all Blizzard games are still playable online (re-releasing Diablo 1 and the first two Warcraft games too, plus you can still make non-Lord of Destruction characters in Diablo 2) so it’s at least not 100% likely this is permanent. It’d just be a weird place to start.
If anything, hopefully it’s something that’ll swing back around with Reforged like Arranged Teams.