Oh whoops, I deleted my comment almost immediately but it seems like you could see it and answer anyway. Yeah makes sense that it’s not an all-instances thing, it was very weird UI-wise because it said “optional” but then the address still came back when I left it empty, saved and refreshed. Seems like they might have forgotten to remove the “optional” label (or remove the requirement, either of the two).
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Not necessarily agreeing with you, but I noticed something similar. I can’t remember why I was logged out of the official Reddit app honestly, but I was, and all day yesterday I’ve been getting “suggested posts” and all of these were from r/amiugly, which was weird as hell, especially (again) considering that I was not even logged in, so there was not any sort of algorithm magic going on. I don’t know the numbers for that sub so idk if it’s just popular, but this is something that I noticed too.
It’s just that email addresses are often linked to the owner’s name and I don’t feel too comfortable knowing that it’s in cleartext and easy to access without knowing it beforehand. Your advice is good though.