Lots of people use multiple Reddit accounts for reasons other than manipulating the karma system. Unless something has changed recently, having multiple accounts is permitted by the TOS, as is creating throwaway accounts, as long as all of the accounts abide by the TOS.

One of the main reasons for doing this is to separate posting by different subject areas. Maybe you're fine with being loose with your personal details on the local subreddit but when you're commenting on a subreddit about being an abuse survivor, you don't want those posts associated with your other account(s). It's fairly common for people on Reddit who get angry about a post to go digging through a person's posting history to find something unrelated to hurt them with or to try to discover the poster's personal identity.

No social media site needs to enforce restrictions on multiple accounts, the primary reason they do is to exert control over their users.

Just off the top of my head a single use case: a reddit account for posts I make for myself, vs. those I make on behalf of my employer (or more specifically in my case, my wife's business).

Then there are bot accounts, users who want to keep their interests and hobbies distinct. Users who have a income based off of activity on social media (and not just sex-workers, but also indie game designers, streamers, social media management folks, etc, etc, etc).

You might not think that you want to keep the different "personas" that you have separate on social media, but most people do, and I say this as a person who uses a single username and profile on most social media sites.

If you are in the business of designing user facing systems I really hope you take some time to learn about how folks use computer systems and user-centric design.

"Nobody needs multiple accounts"

Sorry. What?

I can think of many valid reasons.

How about simply wanting to keep different aspects of your public persons separate?

Why does no one need to have multiple accounts on Reddit? There are multiple subreddits where people post using throwaway accounts to protect their identity but still engage with the community.

>Nobody needs multiple accounts.

I use multiple accounts on Reddit; one for posts and comments I want associated with my name, one for my more radical political views, and one for general shitposts. Reddit happily supports multiple accounts and RES even makes it trivial to switch between them. While it is possible that nobody needs multiple accounts, they can be useful.

Having a throwaway account is sort of a reddit custom. Lots of people have one that is linked to them publically where they link to their blogs and work. While having another anonymous account to make jokes and comments about their lifes without people linking it back to them.

that's hilarious.

Every regular user that I know of has multiple alts. usually 2-3 yes of varying levels of privacy /appropriateness and a few more throwaways for one time use.

I personally have 3 reddit accounts, and each serves a very specific use

Reddit community guidelines allow you to use multiple accounts, and bans for abusing them are almost always shadowbans on your alts so its votes stop getting counted.

The iOS app itself allows for multiple accounts, so it's unlikely that having multiple accounts in itself is the issue.