I honestly think this might be pretty close to the mark. My company just announced RTO today but interestingly was pro WFH even before Covid with many of their staff hired as remote workers. They recently had to lay off a number of people and aren’t projecting to be making their numbers this quarter. So I do wonder if this is an attempt to shed more staff without taking active action to lay off more people and the moral hit that comes with that.
Hah, this almost my exact same experience. Got into Digg only to watch it die shortly after. Went and checked out Reddit but didn’t really like the look and feel of it at the time. It wasn’t until the 2010s that I was bored at work and looking for something to read and stumbled on a Reddit thread that caught my attention. I was on Reddit after that until the API killed my 3rd party app and made the switch to Lemmy.
I think you are seeing some withdrawal symptoms honestly. People are addicted to scrolling for their next dopamine hit. When that’s taken away they get cranky. Add the anonymous nature of being online and things get toxic real fast.
I think it’s important to remember that when you are interacting online, especially with an unknown person, there is no relational component. You are effectively just words or text to them, there isn’t a “person” behind what they are reading. It’s very easy to be obstinate or argumentative with just words because you can’t see the reaction or impact on the other person. So it’s nearly impossible to change someone’s mind in that format unless they are really being genuine and looking to have an exchange of ideas.
I’ve found the best way for myself to handle these types of situations is to realize nothing I say is going to impact them or change their mind. If I’m really wound up I might type a response out to get the frustration and energy out and then delete it. I usually feel better after that and can move on with my day but engaging further is just going to lead to further frustration because you can’t actually reach the person.