Yes which I think is to do with the feeling powerful thing - it's basically a show of dominance.
It's very short term thinking, because I think the long term "success" of this kind of parenting depends very much on the DC's personality and to some extent the culture around them. And perhaps whether the parent is enacting their power in a somewhat "strict but consistent" way, like a drill sergeant or Victorian headteacher, or whether they are chaotic and explosive and unpredictable, like a violent drunk.
For example if authoritarian parenting is fairly normal in the general culture (e.g. US South today, or UK 1970s) then you might grow up and think well, I needed to be kept in my place, I was a child, now I'm an adult, I have earned respect from younger people. That's normal and it's the only way for adults to keep children in line.
Or if you were a fairly compliant child anyway then it can feel fair in a sort of childish logic - he did bad and got punished, but I am good and avoid punishment. He should just not do bad things! It's only really with adult perspective that we consider certain parental demands unreasonable. When you're a child most people just accept it as the norm, to the point some people work out in therapy what was normal and what their parents did/said/expected that was unreasonable.
If you have either of those experiences then you might grow up and either continue the same way or think well that was outdated, I'll do it differently but they were doing their best and not wrong.
But I think where it goes wrong, is if you have a child who struggles with the adult expectations in some way, e.g. a child who is very sensitive emotionally or just finds it hard not to express their own opinions/point of view or maybe struggles with something like self-organisation or physical skills or whatever it is. They can end up having an unfairly hard time because authoritarian approaches are very rigid with no flexibility, so they often end up rebelling ASAP when they get a tiny bit of power or freedom themselves.
This is where it's short term. But I think people who agree with authoritarian approaches don't see that their own method has caused the "rebellion" outcome - they are probably aware of children who grow up and go this way, but the assumption is either that the parent was not hard enough on the child to stamp that out, or the child was a bad person who has made bad choices of their own free will and after a certain point, a parent can't do anything about that.