Being forced to use a chatbot sounds annoying, I agree, but for people who aren't like us on HN who are in the know, the typing indicator fulfills an important function: instant replies can be jarring to users and inhibit their ability to understand the interaction as chat. (There is some evidence to think this intuition is right, by the way: https://chatbotresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/icis2...)
Let's not get into whether chatbots have done more harm than good, but I think we can agree that if we're going to have them at all we should do them right.
Being forced to use a chatbot sounds annoying, I agree, but for people who aren't like us on HN who are in the know, the typing indicator fulfills an important function: instant replies can be jarring to users and inhibit their ability to understand the interaction as chat. (There is some evidence to think this intuition is right, by the way: https://chatbotresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/icis2...)
Let's not get into whether chatbots have done more harm than good, but I think we can agree that if we're going to have them at all we should do them right.