What think you of the anon period in exchanges?

[brightknightie]

Just curious! In your experience and opinion, what is the intended purpose and actual outcome of the anonymous period that has become typical in fanfic exchanges, the time between when the stories are released and when the authors are revealed? I'm thinking not of events with author guessing games or voted awards, but the baseline anon-and-reveal mechanic.

(As I remember it, anon periods were very cumbersome and rare before the AO3 -- though not unheard of: HLH_Shortcuts did it for years, by writers emailing their stories to the mod, who then posted each one -- but became usual and customary with the rise of Yuletide on the AO3.)

Do you, personally, read more stories, more widely, because they are anonymous, or do you purposefully wait until you know the author to read, kudo, or comment? Do you feel differently about reading anon works when you've participated in an event yourself versus when an anonymous story from an unknown event pops up in your fandom's works list? (I will assume that individual fandoms, and multi-fandom versus single-fandom events, differ. They always do.)

Thanks!