Yeah, I actually stopped everything in the morning and thought about it for a while.

The rigid resistance to preventing users from protecting themselves from a _sitewide permanent ban_ feels ridiculous in retrospect.

I don't know if this is a reach, but it honestly feels like Reddit is trying to do two things:

- monetize attrition (manufacture traffic by forcing users to create new accounts)

- intermittent reinforcement/love bombing. I used to have an ex who performed the exact same pattern; start out loving and affectionate, then rapidly deteriorate into a wrongful accusations (in reddit's case, wrongful bans) which would just become a massive time-sink. Then she would "repeal" or reinstate me to keep me captive/grateful... then repeat the whole cycle again and again.

I was thinking about the panic I felt earlier, and the pattern was pretty much identical- harm, apology, relief, re-engagement, harm again, without ever committing to a low-cost and obvious fix.

I am really really starting to think that Reddit's "ban evasion" system is by design at this point