Ever have one of those moments where you try to hold a company accountable using their own words, and they respond by showing you the digital door? Welcome to the Perplexity Pro saga, where citing the manual got a user permanently banned from the official subreddit.

Here’s the scoop: a paying Pro subscriber noticed the advertised “Deep Research” feature seemed, well, shallow. Instead of just complaining, they did the unthinkable—they used Perplexity’s own active documentation and launch blog to prove the agent was severely throttled and not living up to its specs. The community agreed, shooting the post to the top of the sub with hundreds of upvotes. The corporate response? A permanent ban and a deleted thread. Poof. Criticism vanished.

It’s the ultimate “stop hitting yourself” scenario. There’s a special kind of irony in getting exiled for using a company’s published facts against them. It’s like getting kicked out of a library for quietly reading a book aloud that the librarian wrote. The funniest part is they didn’t argue with the evidence; they just argued with the person holding it. When your best defense is to ban the citation, you’ve already lost the debate.

This whole situation is a masterclass in how not to handle feedback. You’ve got a feature named “Deep Research” that can’t handle deep research, and a community forum that can’t handle community discussion. It’s like selling a “Quiet Blender” that sounds like a jet engine, and then confiscating the decibel meter when someone tries to prove it.

In the end, the lesson is clear: if you’re paying for a “Pro” tool, maybe don’t act too pro when you find the flaws. You might just get professionally shown the exit. Remember, in the world of tech support, the most dangerous tool is a customer who can read.