> But back then, it wasn't.
UTC was standardized in 1963 [0]
it was already a 40 year old standard at the time you're talking about.
awareness of UTC being the correct choice has definitely increased over time, but UTC being the correct choice has not changed.
you say reddit servers use UTC now, which implies there was a cutover at some point. were you still at reddit when that happened? were you still hands-on with server maintenance? any anecdotes or war stories from that switchover you want to share?
because I can easily imagine parts of the system taking a subtle dependency on Arizona being Reddit Standard Time, and the transition to UTC causing headaches when that assumption was broken. your memory of this "clever" trick might be different if you had to clean up the eventual mess as well.