>p sure Xbox relinquished (inactive) gamertags

And with this move, the level of discourse on X is one step closer to that on Xbox .

There's a difference between relinquishing and selling.

Pretty much all sites and services should have this functionality.

Why not banks too?

Haven't used your money in a while? Poof! Someone else would make better use of them.

Real estate too. Taxes ain't enough - confiscate vacant property, and sell it at a flat rate at an ~open~ secret auction.

And cars too, of course. Didn't drive it on public roadways in a year? Clearly you don't need it.

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The first analogy is the closest one. People keep money in the bank for convenience, and that's what allows banks to operate.

Social networks use users' posts in the same way. It's their currency. Without it, they are nothing.

This is very different from gaming accounts, where a user profile is little more than the username. People cherish their post and comment history. It's their deposits into the social network.

Of course, I sincerely welcome this move by X. I wouldn't be able to come up with such a great way to shoot oneself in the foot.

>People cherish their post and comment history. It's their deposits into the social network.

The old account just gets renamed. All of the contents still exists. Even old links to posts would continue to work since the username in a URL does not actually matter.

The only problem I see is that the inactivity timeout is 30 days. Make it a year and I can see no valid complaints.

To note, your bank money getting parked somewhere else because of X years of inactivity actually happens depending on where you live. It's not straight given to someone else, but it probably disappears in maintenance fees after a long enough time ?

Same for real estate: specific conditions need to be met, but solely having the land at your name isn't enough to guarantee you keep owning the property.

On cars, I assume you keep paying for the license plate even if you don't drive, or it's revoked and reattributed ?

Basically, reality has a bias against permanent passive ownership.

I agree with your point, just want to throw in with a wink that there's squatting and other laws to go against leaving real estate stay empty, in some countries and jurisdictions.