At this point, the predominant reason it's still undergoing active development is that there is a metric ton of legacy PHP code. As the businesses still using it either mature, evolve, or fail, the need for PHP will begin to dry up.
You're defending the language from an emotional standpoint.
> choosing php for a new project is a no-brianer. The only other 2 stacks to which I can compare it are the Spring stack of Java or .NET core
This is absolutely not the case, and you know it. Almost every language has a wealth of HTTP tools and frameworks, and many of them come built-in.
Choosing PHP will be like choosing Python 2. In fact, that's my 2030 prediction.
People have been calling for PHP's death, or saying PHP is a dying language, for as long as the internet has been around.
It's always the same arguments, that $newHipLanguage will replace it.
Then you actually do some research and understand just how much of the internet is still powered by PHP and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.
So, I'm still waiting for PHP's death. Or for this same predictable comment in 2030.
The reason we don't delete entire account histories wholesale is that it would gut the threads that the account had participated in, which is not fair to the users who replied, nor to readers who are trying to follow discussion. There are unfortunately a lot of ways to abuse deletion as well. Our goal is to find a good balance between the competing concerns, which definitely includes users' needs to be protected from their past posts on the site. I don't want anyone to have the impression that we don't care about that; we spend many hours on it.
Under the GDPR a subject is allowed full erasure rights. If I say I want you to delete my content from x date to y date, or a particular post, or everything entirely then that shouldn't be an issue. A request may be bothersome, but that's what happens when you don't offer that functionality natively.
I noticed a few days back you didn't like it when a user made a new account, except with the internet these days and how everything is archived for all time, throwaway's are the only option. Building a comment history is extremely dangerous, especially when you might forget what details you may have posted or how meta-data can leak through (such as what subs you post in, any details you posted that could identify you etc).
You can't have it both ways: no to multiple accounts and also no to control over your data. I might have 50 accounts, dislike it? Give me proper control over my comments. (to be honest, it may just be worth making a new account for every comment for maximum privacy, it's extreme, but it's a viable option).
If I want to delete them, that's my choice to freely make. Your thoughts or concerns are not relevant to me, thankfully, the GDPR agrees.