Also, one big thing some authors tend to forget is that most readers don't read all the others' comments and think they're the first to make a particular joke/theory/comparison etc. What can feel like "harassment" is just an accumulation of similar individual comments.
I remember this author who got mad one day and decided to abort an entire arc of their story because people kept comparing it to a particular anime.
Except that they had never said anything about it before and just punished everyone even though most of those who made the comparison didn't know they weren't the only ones.
Personally, whenever I get a "if you do this, I'll stop reading" (mind you, that's rare, I'm lucky) I just remember that they may be joking and leave it at that (or I joke back and discover that they were indeed joking...)