Can we PLEASE stop pretending the forced social aspect is what makes the game good?

As someone who is a bachelor of social services and due to that socializes a lot with all kinds of people at work, this claim makes me ick. Forced social interaction is unnatural and not fun. There is a HUGE difference in choosing to socialize with someone of your choice, or being driven into a situation where you need to do so, even if you wouldn't like to.

If the social aspect was fun to the majority, people would just choose to play that way, without Niantic having to enforce it by design in stuff like Elite Raids or Max Battles.

How many times do you play with randoms, unless the content requires you to? Or if there's no rewards to be gained from checking in to an ambassador meet up?

Literally never, unless the people are your family or friends, whom you'd spend your time with regardless. Why? Because it is not what makes the game fun. If you are able to play the content alone or with people you know, you always pick that, instead of grouping up with randoms or faces you've met in meet ups.

On Niantic's part, it's a lie. Niantic doesn't care if we socialize or not. It doesn't make them money.

What they do care about however, is to harvest our movement data and conditioning us to go wherever they want us to and when they want us to. That makes them VERY appealing partner sponsor-wise. If they'd just say this out loud, it would sound not-so-appealing. So better wrap it up in a nice paper of "togetherness" and "community". These wrapping papers work pretty freaking well on marketing the game, and the Pokemon brand as a whole too.

Rant over.