"A major reason people do it is to query presence-at-keyboard before continuing." That's what in-app statuses are for: so they don't have to wait for an answer

"A major reason people do it is to query presence-at-keyboard before continuing." That's what in-app statuses are for: so they don't have to wait for an answer to that, they can just look. "Maybe the matter is time sensitive." Asking whether I'm there and waiting for a response before continuing takes longer. If it's time-sensitive, they can just ask what they need in the first message, and then move on if I don't reply within a decent enough timeframe. "Maybe they don't want to disclose something immediately without setting context, finding something out first, whatever." Context? "Hello" is not context for anything other than the existence of the person, which I hope I'm capable of inferring on my own. Similarly. what could they possibly find out from "hello"?