I won't defend Apple/Facebook, because I think it's nonsense, but here are a couple (technical) reasons why companies like that might justify keeping the accoun

I won't defend Apple/Facebook, because I think it's nonsense, but here are a couple (technical) reasons why companies like that might justify keeping the account around: - Integration with other systems. It's easier to just mark the account record as "inactive" than it is to add functionality to remove it and any references to it from all the other systems. There can be a lot of cascading that would need to happen. - Auditing/Reporting. Perhaps legal or accounting feels the need to keep it around "just in case". Maybe they think they'll need to look up the history of the account one day or audit the activities of previous user at some point down the road.