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Comment by techscruggs | Hacker News Reader

Reddit can't contact them because Reddit didn't require an email address to create an account back then.

If they did require an email address, they could restore their database backups to retrieve that information.

Reddit still doesn't require an email, the signup form is just a well executed dark pattern - you can hit next and skip providing an email.

I wouldn't call a form requesting your email (the only entry field on a dedicated page) a "dark pattern". They out right imply an email is necessary and knowing it's not requires knowledge otherwise or accidentally clicking "next".

I've made a couple of reddit accounts in the last 1-2 years and it was always explicit that an email was optional. Is this all since the recent redesign?

The only indication that an email is not required is that the email field doesn't contain a blue dot, as opposed to the username/password fields. However those are on the next page, so you have no indication that it's not required. That's actually on the new design, on old.reddit.com there is not even that indication.

I see. that's a shame, last time I used the register form it was all fields on one modal popup and said email wasn't required.

Why does everything have to be a "dark pattern"?

So now we're at a point where asking for an email is a privacy violation and a dark pattern, but not asking for an email is a security issue and a dark pattern?

Yup.

Welcome to trade-off oriented programming.

Even then, that would require those people to still have access to the same email address they used to sign up over 11 years ago. Even Gmail probably wasn't in very wide use yet at that point, it was invite-only until February 2007.

i use email addresses set up 20 years ago, they are just redirected to my current mailbox or pulled by current mailbox

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