Speed of development. It could take months for a PR to get into Lemmy core and then a new release.

Things that get into Lemmy core have to be well thought out and the core Devs have to want them in there.

Running custom code is a way to make changes without having to get their approval, and if it proves popular enough, then maybe they’ll implement it upstream.

Can you just run a cronjob to delete files in that directory every day?

(Maybe there’s a reason you can’t do this, I don’t know how Lemmy instance works)

FYI, whitewashing makes perfect sense to use there:

to deliberately attempt to conceal unpleasant or incriminating facts about (someone or something).

It has nothing to do with race in this context.