Yeah, I don’t think it’s just lazy or social habit that causes people to do this. Particularly when it’s an outsider (eg a sales person in an engineering team’

Yeah, I don’t think it’s just lazy or social habit that causes people to do this. Particularly when it’s an outsider (eg a sales person in an engineering team’s chat room) in a situation where some response is expected (eg a work environment), it can seem presumptuous to dump a question that will require a bunch of time to engage with. Asking to ask expresses “I realize I’m asking for a bunch of your time here and it’s okay if you don’t want to help [even if you could]” and it gives the room a chance to decline the question before getting far enough into it that it would appear rude to bail out. I’m guessing a bit here from what I’ve seen. I don’t think this stuff is conscious. But I don’t feel like the authors of stuff like this are even trying to have empathy for why people do this.