[watwut]

"Twitter/facebook/email can all be erased."

That can mean professional or social isolation for quite a lot of people - or at least disadvantage. The moment your blog, github account, facebook account or twitters matters for employers, peers, business, conferences you would like talk at or negotiations is the moment when walking away affects you.

[ryandrake]

That's a little exaggerated I think. I don't have a blog, an active GitHub account, and don't use Facebook or Twitter at all. Yet, by some miracle, I have a robust social life and am gainfully employed. I think people overstate the importance of these services (most of which, by the way, did not even exist 15 years ago). I choose to post here but could stop tomorrow and it would have zero effect on my personal or professional life.

[ashark]

B-b-but how will I growth hack my way to a 4-hour-workweek selling ebooks about how to growth hack, without constant, obnoxious self promotion under my real name on all corners of the Web?! God's sake, I can't possibly be a thought leader anonymously! You savage.

[watwut]

What you just describes is normal capitalist economy. People selling and promoting stuff. If that person is able to make a living with just 4 hours a week work like that, they are pretty skilled. Are you saying it is ok to harass them out of that business just because you are jealous?

It is nice example of someone who would be really harmed by leaving.

[ashark]

No, I'm saying there's an inherent conflict between those for whom the "No One Can Tell You're a Dog" Internet is and should be how things work, and those for whom making money under their real name by polluting it with garbage is part of how they do business or build their ridiculous "personal brand" or whatever. For the former, the latter complaining that they're being harassed because they plastered their real world details on every virtual surface they could find comes off as 1) n00btastic and/or 2) entitled whining, and the continued pushes for increased real-name use and harsh moderation from that corner (and the continued intrusion of commercial activity, especially ads and the OMG-we-actually-live-in-a-sci-fi-dystopia spy economy but also marketing trash masquerading as content) represent attacks on the quality and freedom of the Internet.

Just because people get to run around filling the real world with junk to make a buck doesn't mean they're entitled to feel welcome everywhere they might want to do that, or that they can expect to be given a pass on common sense or the norms of the media they seek to degrade. They can console themselves with the fact that they're almost certainly going to win in the long run, I guess, since money always does.

That said: yeah, prosecute actual harassment when possible. "NEVER POST YOUR REAL WOLD DETAILS PUBLICLY ON THE INTERNET" remains and should (but won't) remain excellent advice, however, and I wish more people would follow it, and if they've chosen to ignore it to make money I wish they'd quit trying to make everything worse rather than saying "oh, gee, I ignored that and bad things happened, I guess I should stop ignoring that" (but they won't, because money).

[watwut]

Congrats. And everyone else is expected to be exactly like you and have nice real world community and job that does not involve real identity on the Internet. Gotcha.