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The list itself is not as important as the SPLC's stamp of approval on it. The SPLC had a positive reputation on the political spectrum from all but the most extreme leftists down to the center right, covering most people who are within the Overton window, and certainly a majority of decision makers in the tech and financial sectors. To these people, they were credible as a non-partisan subject matter expert on what is a hate group or related. Of course, to people deeply aware of the culture war they were obviously a player in it, but there's still a shocking amount of people unaware of the culture war. Or who don't recognize it as a war between two sides with legit grievances, but only as a one-sided "my side who is obviously right" vs "uninformed, stupid and/or evil people". Using their data product for automated checks made sense. Anyone else, or the SPLC itself going forward if it survives this, is going to have a harder time laundering political interference as a non-partisan service. Certainly they'll face more scrutiny.
The reputation of the SPLC does not matter. The left can and does spin up new organizations all the time which are treated by the media and thus by all concerned as if they were absolutely credible experts. If the SPLC falls, they will simply spin up a new organization with some generic sounding name that will have the same reputation as the SPLC but none of its legal liabilities.
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