My first shadowban I think took me about 2 months to realise why I wasn't getting any replies... I had posted numerous help topics and just started to think that Reddit wasn't that useful anymore.
Then I realised I'd been shadowbanned. I didn't even know what it was.
I guess my IP or something got flagged because generally I was never able to make an account that lasted more than a few days without getting shadowbanned. At first it was okay even, some subreddits your account was working fine. Posting in the homelab subreddits or datahoarder etc. other subs like news, worldnews etc. my comments never got any replies.
I only ever used my acc mostly to ask questions. When I got my answer, I abandoned the thread. Didn't have time for drama and I generally didn't even reply to comments except to give more info on a request.
Month-on-month it got worse. Accounts which had no right to be flagged, got shadowbanned. One day I'd be posting fine, the next. Shadowbanned.
Then I'd make another account. Different device, different IP, even from a friend's computer in another country. I realised later they'd track you through everything. If you went to threads of a person who was shadowbanned, you also got it. Ultimately I spent ages trying to have even just one account with enough karma that I could post without captcha or 10 minute delay.
I wasted months and despite how much I read about it. I could never figure out how it worked. Reading about it also felt like a waste of my time.
When reddit finally shut down the public api and the apps I was using stopped working. I ditched it immediately. Gradually I also went back to stackoverflow. Even if it takes longer to get an answer, they are so much higher quality.
Looking back, I knew reddit sucked but boy was I mad when I thought of how much time I wasted. Just because I didn't spend 7 years of my life building a 75k karma account...
Lol that's so mean ๐