I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
My complaint was in the context of someone in a community asking a question relevant to that community, where it is expected the community would have the answer. Telling the questioner snidely to “just google it” trains them to become dependent on the google algorithm, which can show them whatever it feels like at any given time, which may or may not even be the best answer to the question.
I suppose if the community itself has a search engine you could tell them to use that, but better would be to just link them to the relevant FAQ (assuming you don’t have the time or energy to personally answer it).
I see what you are saying now. I will agree that it does seem lazy and rude to just tell someone to Google something that they don’t know anything about, without at least pointing them to a specific site or article to search for.