Comment by cxr

Weird subthread.

> The selfish point (there are other points too) of "hi" is to confirm you have their attention

No one is unsure of the selfish/self-serving motivation behind the lone "hello". The singleminded self-centeredness at the expense of others is the _entire_ basis of the criticism.

This response is like encountering in a thread about lunch theft in the workplace, "Some people take food that isn't theirs because they didn't bring anything for lunch, and they see food that someone else brought sitting there in the fridge." The power of this response to be able to explain something not already understood is nil—and so is its exculpatory power.

> to remove plausible deniability of "oops I missed your message."

I'll dispute this. The overwhelming purpose is so the sender can confirm they have the receiver's attention so the sender knows whether to bother themselves with typing out the rest of their inquiry. They're happy to trade the negative consequences on others for a minor convenience to themselves.