I might have to look more into my state’s right to be forgotten law. I used PDS for about 2 weeks until no more zombie posts were in my profile (most resurrected by the opening of closed subs). I was cleaning out some gaming book marks and clicked on a reddit thread I’d kept and, lo and behold, I found myself in the comments. Except I’d purged all of those. And searching for myself yields no results. This is…disappointing.
I commented a lot on tech support subreddits and I don’t want to delete my comments because other people searching for the same problem might find the solution there. I think it’s more important to help people than to spite Reddit. Why am I wrong?
The only problem with that, and its not really a big problem yet, is that reddit is using your content to generate money for themselves in increasingly unethical methods. Previously you could see and interact with content without logging in from many different platforms. Now, on mobile, you can only interact with it on one platform (their own app that forces ads etc) and increasingly you need to be logged in to access it (so they can better track your movement and feed user specific ads). It is not unlikely that in the future they rework reddit premium to prevent people from seeing free content.
So the end result of your content could be that reddit uses it to take advantage of someone in their time of need by forcing them to pay for a month of reddit premium just to get help with their issues which you provided a solution to for free.
Now, that’s a stretch but only because I dont see how reddit can force a premium subscription on people without everyone rioting and burning the place down. But they seem to have killed all 3rd party apps which was also something I didnt think could possibly happen without bloodshed and it did easily.
With all that said, I didnt delete my comment history either because I personally feel that it’s better to help people than to hurt reddit. But at the current direction and speed reddit is heading I think it’s not out of the question that I would in the future change my mind and delete everything.
I don’t think you are.
You’re wrong because your comments don’t have to be on Reddit to help people. You could copy them (including the entire thread as context, if necessary) and repost them elsewhere instead.
I could also do that AND not delete them from Reddit, so really you didn’t present an alternative but a complement.
You’re not. I receive a few comment replies a year from old posts I made in support threads years ago, and I don’t want to screw over those people. I don’t plan on adding any more content to Reddit in the future, but I see no need in being petty and removing all my old content if it’s helping out individuals now and in the future. If the side benefit is that some rich asshole is gonna make an extra $.37 on top of his other 3 billion during an IPO or whatever, then so be it. I don’t feel like the trade off is worth it to me.
Thank you.
Using this logic, you didn’t leave reddit, right?
If helping is more important than spiting reddit, shouldn’t you stay?
Merely trying to understand your perspective.
I can help people in places other than Reddit, so I did leave. That’s different from deleting comments I already made that happen to be there.
Because people who really need those comments can find them in a cache somewhere (such as The Wayback Machine), and while I am sure those comments are very helpful, they are probably not the only source for the information you provided. The difference deleting now makes is that Reddit can’t make more money from your work. People will still find the information, and, if they have to look further than Reddit, they might find you here.
Most of the people I help with basic tech support questions have never heard of the Wayback Machine, and odds are that people who ask themselves the same questions in the future won’t have heard of it either. I feel it’s petty to take back information from people who have trouble finding it kust to spite the big guy, especially since I already went to the trouble of putting it out there anyway. And it being available elsewhere, while a good thing, is not a guaranteed good thing. Forums and wikis can close or be vandalized or go through what’s happening to Reddit now or any number of other things.
You’re not wrong. It’d be helpful to copy these helpful anwers here somewhere, though