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I remember when I was learning German seriously I switched over software and websites to German... and felt very uncomfortable that facebook would always use 'du' with me. I'm guessing it's some marketing "oh we're so informal and cool" marketing wank talk, but it grossed me out.

Not sure if any native German speakers that had that reaction.

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Certainly, even in British English I remember when my bank moved from formal text messages to 'friendly' on the basis of a survey I never remember receiving.

It is weird getting a balance update with "Hi" as the leader and emoticons throughout. We're not chums, just give me the news in the most emotionless manner possible.

And don't get me started on the direction Microsoft went with Windows 10/11. "We're just getting things ready!" "Working on it..." "Something went wrong :(".... Eugh!

E-Mails from big cooperations become increasingly "du". Sometimes it's still weird, but overall everyone got used to being on "du" basis with big faceless cooperations. I don't really notice anymore.

That being said, I'm young enough to have not really experienced a time when it was unheard of to call someone you don't know really well "du". I'm only learning from this thread that it seems to be a fairly recent development.

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