1. It means the cyber-vandalism law that the grandparent proposed wouldn't have any teeth here because it legally still belongs to you.
2. They can't change that provision because a good chunk of the TOS is about how the fact that it's your content means they're not liable for it. Their nonliability looks a lot fishier if they're also claiming copyright.
> The Services may contain information, text, links, graphics, photos, videos, audio, streams, or other materials (“Content”), including Content created with or submitted to the Services by you or through your Account (“Your Content”). We take no responsibility for and we do not expressly or implicitly endorse, support, or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any of Your Content.
> By submitting Your Content to the Services, you represent and warrant that you have all rights, power, and authority necessary to grant the rights to Your Content contained within these Terms. Because you alone are responsible for Your Content, you may expose yourself to liability if you post or share Content without all necessary rights.
> You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant Reddit the following license to use that Content:
This applies to all their users, not just EU. Only difference is that US TOS make you waive your moral rights. I grant Reddit a right to copy them, but they're mine. If I destroy them, Reddit no longer has them.
Which is really just one more proof that reddit's added value is about zero and that looking to profit from _my_ content shows really the kind of leeches that they are.
And TBH the perception of owning your comments doesn't really matter in the short term... people don't care, they just want to post.
In the long term the actual content creators won't like it, but that is a problem for another owner.