It’s a good idea. You get to rehearse your response to something touchy that somebody might mention IRL at a dinner or campfire or whatever. It helps you evaluate your own understanding before saying something ignorant or too extreme that winds up negatively affecting a good friendship.

When I first started participating online I made the mistake of regurgitating IRL a lot of opinions and garbage I read in spaces I thought I agreed with, at least adjacently. When I noticed other people doing this in my cohort I got a serious case of the cringe and made an effort to be a little more real to myself.

Now various channels are other worlds to practice my thoughts before expressing them materially, before possibly causing discomfort to people I like. I’m thankful for online spaces taking the burrs off or otherwise letting the dough proof

I can’t stand Google maps now. You have to fight it to show the actual map. The map, too, is now swarmed in Wall-E levels of marketing trash: bubbles, home businesses, auto play review videos, promoted fast food and coffee 8 miles away when I’m in a dense walkable area. The user reviews and navigation are still valuable, but literally every other aspect has went to shit.

I rocked tt-rss for 8+ years, self hosting. Very configurable for me and it was basically my youtube homepage. However I’ll say that on more than one occasion the update was not trivial.

Is this a military thing? One of the characters in Generation Kill says this in the first episode.