I've been thinking about this a lot lately. There's definitely a growing disconnect between internet people and reality. It's not at all limited to technology news. I don't think it's going to end well.
a growing disconnect between internet people and reality
The disconnect has always been there. People have always had immersion bias. That's why it goes by many names: Parochialism, regionalism, racism, class bias, tribalism.
It's fun to watch people blame the disconnect between tribal culture and reality on the Internet -- one could have predicted that; new technology tends to get blamed for anything and everything, no matter what the technology is -- but history is replete with examples of clueless, reality-disconnected people who managed to construct their bubbles without the benefit of any kind of networking tech. Lysenko didn't need the net. The pre-Revolutionary French aristocracy didn't need the net.
Most likely to immersion bias - they tend to visit sites that align with their beliefs, which in turn reinforces their world view, and without a healthy dose of physical reality, the distortion gets so bad you tend to get these types of comments a lot.
It pays to be aware of the subjectiveness of your feelings on things - if I can't put objective figures on it, then I don't trust it - which tends to eliminate popular folklore from a lot of scenarios...
The disconnect has always been there. People have always had immersion bias. That's why it goes by many names: Parochialism, regionalism, racism, class bias, tribalism.
It's fun to watch people blame the disconnect between tribal culture and reality on the Internet -- one could have predicted that; new technology tends to get blamed for anything and everything, no matter what the technology is -- but history is replete with examples of clueless, reality-disconnected people who managed to construct their bubbles without the benefit of any kind of networking tech. Lysenko didn't need the net. The pre-Revolutionary French aristocracy didn't need the net.