It's shockingly frustrating and disheartening.
I recently (like, yesterday) got permanently banned from Reddit for "report abuse", for some random semi-nonsense comment I reported a month ago on a meme subreddit. Regardless of how justified that is or isn't -- I only have one side of the story to share of course, and I think I just got caught in some labor-saving measures for their underpaid+overworked admin staff -- it's a great reminder of these corporations' power over us.
A lifetime ban from a forum is certainly not as practically bad as the nightmare scenario of losing GMail, but still not great. I used Reddit to discuss technology, philosophy, and politics, and was quite active over the last year especially, using the platform's various science subs to share+refine the ideas I'm developing for my upcoming book with experts. Obviously there's a professional element there, but it was also a big outlet for me, keeping me motivated to share my work when I was feeling like scrapping it all due to anxiety and/or pessimism. Getting 50 upvotes on your detailed critique of some tenured professor's work feels better than you might imagine! I even had 45 "followers", though I never quite learned what that feature was or why it existed -- still, it was a nice ego boost at time when I needed that desperately.
Now that I'm banned for life, I'm basically just planning on giving up that part of my personality for now. Perhaps publishing my book will earn me some friends/critics willing to discuss such things with me, or perhaps I can make some when I start a PhD someday, but until then, Reddit's the only show in town; I've realized that Reddit is to scientific discussion what LinkedIn is to professional networking.
Like LinkedIn there are alternatives, but also like LinkedIn, the alternatives lack network effects and features. Lemmy is absurdly small+monolithic by comparison (/r/philosophy alone is 395x bigger than the entire 'Lemmyverse' put together, and much more diverse), HackerNews is highly focused and intentionally underdeveloped ("You're posting too fast!" + no markdown or communities), Twitter is somehow a Nazi thing now, and LessWrong is... well, it's its own beast. I could try Bluesky or Threads, but A) I've been a forum diehard since finding giantitp.com in middle school, and B) that feels a little like asking to be hurt again, lol. Would love any recommendations from passerby, though!
...sorry, had to get that off my chest, I guess. 12+ years of comments disappearing due to a random incident was more of an emotional blow than I expected, to be perfectly honest. TL;DR: Never, ever report any comments on Reddit. Ever. It's an under-appreciated risk.