Not to mention that Google is also terrible for retrieving some (most?) kinds of information. It can work with basic facts but then you're still relying on Google (or any other search engine) not to omit other salient facts or sources.

I was like you and mainly lurked for this reason, too. The fediverse can be a lot friendlier. The atmosphere had changed a little since the latest Reddit exodus. Hopefully, most of the toxicity of that platform is left behind.

It might be helpful to reiterate that knowledge isn't fixed and the while Google provides one answer, we could get a better answer after a discussion. So keep asking questions!

In a similar vein have ever ready portal to all of human knowledge constantly in our pocket it has killed some avenue of debate in face to face social situations, like out at a bar. In the before time you could spend an entire evening debating which came first or who wrote some film, or which song sold most albums and the argument would not be settled by some whipping out a phone, googling and done.

This is so true, I haven't asked question on stack overflow for a long time because often I find the answer by myself or by googling it. On rare occasions I asked it gets closed as duplicate of barely related question that doesn't answer my question or I get no answers.

Something I've noticed as I've shifted more of my conversations from Reddit to Discord (even before the garbage fire over at the site) is that I'm not looking up stuff as much during instant, short-form communication. Just casual conversation really is okay sometimes. I'll be trying to keep that in mind as I spend more time on Reddit alternatives.

I also have a theory that message board conversations spend as much time on opinion as they do because all the little shit has been solved now that we have esoteric information at our fingertips. Some people don't even know what it was like to be sitting around with friends all trying to figure out what 80's film you saw Robert Loggia in because you couldn't just look it up on-demand.

There are some things you cannot simply "google". As a straight man, define "queer" to me about 5 to 10 years ago. I was on a dating sight and decent amount of women were putting this in their profile. I asked politely. Let me tell ya, it wasn't a polite response.

Why are questions all of a sudden insults when the person may actually be ignorant and trying to educate themselves?

True. And just as true is that there sure have been a lot of long, time-consuming, non-productive, non-entertaining, maybe even destructive discussions that could have been completely avoided or diverted into a completely different direction if someone would have said "google it" right at the beginning.

Not "google it", but when people who seem to be trolls keep asking nonsense questions that make it clear they haven't read past the subreddit name, I have no problem with them just being linked to the FAQ (I hate when people don't link it: it's not people's fault reddit, especially official app, make finding such impossible) or told to search their question and read the other 1000 times that question has been asked on said subreddit (and ideally link to one of them that people have actual answers to but not necessary imo).

Whenever I debate for fun with some friends we kinda have this unspoken agreement of googling is cheating.

Even with ready access to Google, I still try to ask questions about people's beliefs/lifestyles/hobbies/etc. It's a mixed bag with the responses I get. Some folks are very passionate and ready to explain the subject. Others just tell you to Google it. I obviously know I can Google it, but was hoping for human interaction with someone who clearly has an interest in the topic. Maybe some bonding, maybe some learning, maybe give that person a second to nerd out.