Waiting

Maybe there should be an "Are you still there?" button after a minute or so waiting. Which the opponent has a minute to answer so I don't waste five minutes of my life making sure somebody doesn't screw me over.

There are already rules in place for disconnects and for connected opponents who don't move in whatever amt of time chess.com thinks is fair, which is BS because it's supposed to be up to the player, not chess.com as to how they allocate their time. However chess.com put their bogus rules (regarding connected players) in place to make people like you happy, and see how much good it did them?

You can submit your suggestion directly to the staff by clicking on Help & Support, but don't hold your breath waiting for it to be implemented. BTW if the 5 minutes of your life is that precious maybe you should be doing something more important than playing chess.

You should be grateful if you're only getting screwed over here and no place else.

it's called chat......

I think in 30 minute games it's like 10 or 15 minutes.  That's a huge portion of one's time.  It's still not fair to automatically count the game as abandoned if someone is actually thinking for those 10 or 15 minutes.  It could be a complicated position and a complex tactic will win or break the game, making those 10 minutes worthwhile.  The fact of the matter is that when I've seen this, it's when someone drops their queen or their rook in a rook vs. rook endgame.