Reddit has issues, but searching for topic + "reddit" is one of the only remaining ways to make Google not a piece of steaming ad-infested garbage. For example, if you want to find the best budget rollerblades, Google will happily serve you page after page of auto-generated garbage. On reddit you can find real enthusiasts giving recommendations.
Also ...ycombinator isn't exactly just a community run bulletin board either. Although HN not being ad infested is absolutely amazing. Also the simple design.
Yeah, I'm not going to the Internet and ask about things I'd like to buy, I'm going to ask my friends or take a chance on second hand stuff. A SearxNG instance that hardly ever serves up Google responses and Wikipedia are my main search engines outside systems I control.
Sure, I'm not really using this as a web forum, I'm not here for the community.
It sounds like you almost want to live off grid completely (I'm exaggerating a bit based on your response - it's not meant to be condescending either btw...hard to convey tone online).
I certainly get that itch sometimes after the person at the coffee shop asks me if I've downloaded the app for the 50th time. No, I don't want 45 apps on my phone just so I can get a tiny discount or a free coffee each year.
Regarding the comment on asking friends. I think that has some value, but it assumes that you know someone for everything you're interested in or that they have the same kind of purchasing power or ideas as you. The Internet can be helpful there if you're interested in the best bang for the buck for a newbie, or the best product period once you've spent more time.
If push comes to shove I certainly want to be prepared to do so, but no, it's not something I yearn for. I have many other reasons to try and keep the large US IT-companies at arms length, among them the criminality of US law with regards to data protection rights.
However, most weekends I travel to the forest with my family and we spend some time walking, cooking and hanging out in a distinctly analog setting.
No, it doesn't. It assumes they might know someone who knows someone that has valuable input. Doesn't require that they have direct experience either, it's usually enough that they have adjacent experience. And then there's books, when _I find myself to be the unique snowflake in my social network there's always someone who wrote a good book or more on the topic. By now my physical library is quite large and covers a large portion of occidental modernity, both fiction and the sciences.
The Internet is nice and all, and sometimes there's good advice in contemporary web forums, but it's also pretty young and lacks both the depth and width of the last few centuries of dead tree storage. These days people also throw second hand books after you if you say you're interested, or they charge a euro at most unless it's something collectors might find valuable.
I quite enjoy computers and computer networks, though. It's mostly the social and entertainment industrial side of it that I find unsatisfying.
I'm absolutely not an expert, just a long time enjoyer of some classic Forth books and certain concatenative languages.