"There is no QANON" was a course correction years into the movement. Early on, Q followers gave their "movement" the name Qanon. That name came from within on 4-chan and various other forums that closely followed Q's "drops". Early on, the "official" FR Q thread was named QANON:, then Q ANON:, and now just Q:. All of the memes and graphics for the first couple years consistently referred to QANON and our resident FReeQs (a term of endearment, not a slur) used the term enthusiastically and without rebuke. Even a couple "Q-drops" used the QANON label (oops). When Qanon became a pejorative, the call went out in 2020 (from "Q"/Ron Watkins) and those same people who previously embraced the name, suddenly started reposting "Q's" words, “There is Q. There are Anons. There is no QAnon.” to anyone who used the term. So, we went from having an enthusiastic movement, to "there is no movement". I guess you can't criticize or ridicule a movement if it doesn't exist, right? But it was too late to correct by then, the name stuck. Notably, soon after the "There is no QAnon" drop, Q drops stopped.
That whole “There is Q. There are Anons. There is no Qanon”, thing was so absurd, right from the start. It was a pointless semantic distinction that some people elevated to a profound insight of some sorts.
I remember being lectured by Qanon purists for using the term Qanon “incorrectly”, even though there was no confusion about what I was referring to. Why Q thought that it was an important distinction to make is beyond me, but it could very well be what it sounds like your suggesting - offering a straw man for true believers that they could use to dismiss any argument on the basis of incorrect terminology. (i.e. If you don’t even know the difference between “Q” and “Qanon”, then there’s no point in even debating you).