Its becoming clear to me that one reason why the @delete thing annoys me is my history working on web sites. I started back in the 2000s and at this point privacy was an afterthought. I mean, social media was just a baby. My view of the web was one of archival information. Respect URLs. Make redirects when you do a site redesign. Dead links are bad for the web. All that sort of stuff.
Also, I have been interested in privacy for many years and have watched to surveillance state move from a conspiracy theory to accepted fact. I remember the day I came into the office and my office mate apologized to me about calling me a nut (The day Snowden's revelations came out). I feel a conflict here. Its real. Privacy is not a boolean. Its full of grey areas and each individual has their own set of threats and tradeoffs. I can't get into anyone else's head nor have I walked in their shoes.
I just ask that you think about how think about privacy and SN. Don't think that deleting content will save you. Maybe it makes some things harder but be careful. On the other side don't think there are zero tradeoffs to deleting you contributions. There are tradeoffs. I'm not making a judgement call on any individual or any instance of using any of SN privacy features. I just ask that we all think about it.