And then to write about it under one’s own name?
Isn’t this kind of thing that goes against the CFAA?
PRs can wait — not worth criminal charges.
Changing your first name field on a form too often? Welcome to prison!
Widespread proliferation of pseudonyms modeling/nudging self-censorship is not a proxy for fear in humans-who-hack.
You make it sound as if this is some kind of irrational response to nothing.
When in reality it's an entirely reasonable response to the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act [1].
The interesting observation here wouldn't be about us "as a culture", it would be about the government.
Because obviously it's not about "changing your first name field on a form too often", it's about using that field for an unintended use, in order to bypass controls to give yourself access to communications the company didn't authorize you for.
I don't know why you think a kind of cultural fear is the thing to focus on here, rather than the very real law that sends people to very real prison.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
They're charging money for normal easy communication with the ground, and they're not charging for slow convoluted communication with the ground. I see the problem with getting the former without paying, but it's harder to find a problem with getting the latter without paying. They configured their system to allow it, and then failed to list rapid changes and encoding as either authorized or unauthorized.
I don't know how a court would actually decide, and that would depend on the precise jury as well.
But the point is that it's entirely reasonable to be scared that this could land you in jail. Cases are decided by people who have common sense.