The parts about not being able to make friends, wading through things you don't like or care about, or getting told to be yourself because of your shit taste, that's still very much a 4chan thing. In the sense of wasting tons of time on a narrowing echo chamber, yes, that definitely applies to the mainstream internet now. There's no shortage of people joking about how they NEED to watch this two-hour video on Peruvian rodents at 3AM or writing about how "doomscrolling" is hurting their mental health, and a comment on the video from six years ago (around the Tumblr porn ban) says it sounds just Twitter.

Two separate things that stand out to me is that he left right before irony went to hell circa 2012, and that part of the problem is also him making a bad use of his time. He pretty much takes the worst form of interaction you could have, that of repetitive shouting matches over dumb shit, and says that if you're doing something better than that you're either deluded or the exception. Notice how he preemptively goes "well, you do you" because he doesn't actually have a counter argument there. Again if you look at the comments there are people calling him out over it, one even brands him a social media addict.

I agree with you OP, his complaints apply more to mainstream internet as a whole, because let me ask you this: How is spending all your time on 4chan—or any other image board for that matter—any different to spending it all on any other social media like Facebook? Knowing someone's real name doesn't change how close you are, and if anything, having that hard identity can let you sour your entire perception over them when they say the wrong stupid things on the internet.

I get some of the frustrations, /a/ just isn't what it used to be and I kept to /jp/ because everywhere else was too different of a culture and even /jp/ changed in ways I didn't like; but, his experience isn't mine. I know 4chan is a cesspit of post ironic trolling mired in twenty layers of cynicism, but I also know that's not true everywhere. You can go into a thread with good expectations and come out feeling good about yourself, because you and other anons had a good fun discussion. And this is in Anno Domini 2024.
As a newfag it's going to be much harder to discern things, and that's to the detriment of the website. If your first foray is in /b/ or /v/ then God help you. If you're not equipped to understand that some nobody fag's dogshit opinion is, in fact, a dogshit opinion that shouldn't take up any room in your head then yeah you're going to turn into the jaded spiteful husk he describes. Arguments are another thing. Arguing with a troll or someone with total conviction is going to be a massive time waster and leave you with a bad taste, and if you cant realize that from the onset then it's going to be tough.
I digress. Point is: it's a difficult culture and getting to the good parts requires experience and avoiding all the pitfalls along the way. Knowing to look out and not step in dogshit will save you the trouble of feeling angry you stepped in dogshit.

¥efficiency
Yeah, it's not efficient. If I want to see 2hus I go to danbooru and pixiv and browse the relevant tags. The point is in discussion and having fun with a thread over a narrow topic. In a character thread we dump images we like of that character and discuss or shitpost about her. I won't pretend this is always the case, but it's something I enjoy.

¥anonymous
In larger, faster boards this is an issue, but to say it's impossible to socialize and form connections with others is disingenuous. It's not like a matchmaking lobby. Know it or not, if you're commonly in a niche then you'll interact with the same people quite a lot. Over time you get a grasp of personality and their likes and dislikes, and the typing style and images they use can identify them just a little bit more. Through playing games with them over the years I got to know plenty of regulars. Playing games for 8 hours straight is a fast way to expose character, both good and bad, and even when it's done and everyone goes back to being "Anonymous" I know they're still there.
On /jp/ there's an interesting phenomenon that I've observed. Because the board is so focused on Touhou and nearly everyone has a favorite, you can identify others far easier because you know they all fall into certain camps. One anon really likes Utsuho, another Ran, others like Cirno and Marisa and on and on. It's far from "real" socialization, but it's just as far from the nothing he talks about.

>Would I be the same without 4chan?
No. Thanks to my experiences there I found new hobbies and things to love. I bought things I never thought of getting and I was motivated to do things I never would have done otherwise. Am I more jaded and cynical now than I was six years ago? Sure, 100%. But that was happening with or without image boards. Doom scrolling on Youtube has done more damage to my perceptions than anything image boards have ever done.

>Does 4chan make you happy?
Yes. I look forward to reading the next post from a writefag. I look forward to the next game night. I look forward to talking about how my waifu with other fags who also like that character and her place in the setting and lore.

The key to all this? Just realize that some things don't matter and you're far better off taking it easy. It's not worth the effort or mental stress of miring yourself in pointless arguments and shouting matches. So, learn to walk away, ignore those who want to waste your time, and talk to others worth your time.

>>134169
>¥anonymous
I somewhat disagree with this part. There's a large chasm between having an idea of who you're talking with, no matter how solid, and mutually knowing with full certainty that it's this specific person. In this very board a mod of all people tripped and fell into it sixteen hours ago. And for the identification of users to be common you either need a large amount of people that stand out or a stable niche of smaller size where you can spend a long and continous stretch of time with them, neither of which exists by default/is a given and even when it does it isn't going to apply to everyone. I do believe the situation is more fragile and harder to realize in an imageboard over other sites.

fun things are fun
unfun things are unfun
metaposting is malignant unfun

dumb malignantards.

>>134173
DEEPLY unfun post.

I'm not going to watch this video but why is Suigentou holding a razor?
1. How does that relate to the video or is the the infamous clickybait I keep hearing about?
2. Why does she need a razor if she is a doll? She can't grow body hair.

>>134183
Suibuntu just got done shaving some mutant bushy lolis, and no, it is infamous but not baity.

>>134184
Now you have raised even more questions. What is the backstory behind that image?

>>134186
I don't know, actually. The source is futaba.