The reddit advice is correct that if you can get away with it, not stating a salary expectation and making the employer give the first number is likely to get you a higher salary. But of course the employer knows this too and wants to pay as little as possible, which is why they try to get you to give the first number. So it comes down to who has the most power in the negotiation. In most industries at most times, the employer has way more power than the employee and can just refuse to hire someone who won’t give a number because there are plenty of other candidates, as you discovered. But a disproportionate number of reddit users work in software engineering and related fields, and until recently employees in those fields had a lot of leverage when it comes to salary negotiations like this, which is probably where the advice comes from. Basically, this is good advice if you know there are lots of companies that would want to hire you, because it will maximize your salary at the risk of potentially shutting the door at one company. It’s not good advice if you really want to work at a particular company and aren’t trying to maximize your salary or expect to have few options.