Why do we need the social part of the site at all?

I am currently reading They Knew by Sarah Kendzior. There's plenty about Epstein in the book. The focus is about warnings ignored or even suppressed by people who knew. Musk advertises his perversion, which has proven in recent decades the best way for someone in the public eye to hide their crimes.

If you were talking about cigarettes, alcohol, sugar -- I would agree with you.
However this forum can be used for good... to exchange valuable ideas. E.g a beginner player could ask others about a move they're really stumped about. Or a clever user can suggest a clever feature addition to the site. Or people can have interesting discussions as we are now.

I too prefer localism over globalism.
Globalism is the "freedom of movement of people and resources around the world".
I don't like the freedom of movement of people so much (e.g. the whole world moving to the big mega cities in the west) -- but I think free movement of resources/ideas is valuable (although not always -- e.g. goods made in sweat shops, or outsourcing your food supply etc).

This is true.
We have to be very disciplined in how we use tech -- we are not completely evolved for it.
Local communities, churches, etc are more important than ever.

Psycho-Pass is an interesting anime on the themes of too much tech and what it leads to.

This sounds like a you problem and not a other people problem. Many hermits/philosophers etc over the years have made a virtue out of isolation, if you want to follow in their footsteps, have at it horse, but don't force the way you live your life on others who might enjoy the social aspects off it. 

In essence. I always ask, "Can this problem be solved by more freedom?" and in this case, yes it can. By giving everyone the choice on whether they want to engage with social elements of chess/society/whatever, then you ensure that everyone can live in accordance with their own desires. 

If your complaint is that you can not control yourself. That is a character flaw and one the individual should seek to address with discipline, restraint and prudence, not by removing something from everyone else to shelter themselves. Like all things in life, alcohol, gambling, exercise, eating. It can all be abused, but they are not inherently bad and just because person X cant stop themselves eating 1000 doughnuts a day and passing away at 40, it doesn't mean other people cant enjoy 1 doughnut a day. 

I have a good solution.

Let freeloaders (non paying members read forums but not post) no benefits because they pay for none.

Let Gold members read and post once a week (only post in one thread a week no re-post))

Let the next level of paid members post twice a week

Finally let the highest level payers have unlimited access

No pit bull needs to woof

I censure no one I just believe on a paying site which this is they can do this.

After all they track you  and give you advertisements and they are rick 82.-83. million dollars paid for a competiters web site

The more I think about it, the more I think the OP has a valid point. 

We have so many options for social media at this point, it seems like a lot of this site is kinda redundant and ready for a trim.  2/3rds for the forums and the blogs are basically a wasteland. 

It might be wise to trim the fat and focus on giving us a better online chess experience.  

That would alienate all those members that want all the social features or that use them to a larger extent.

Do you have a list of good chess.com blogs? 

Do you support the same policy for voting in elections?
Pay to vote?

I do... but they have comment sections where community members can communicate with each other -- so you probably wouldn't want them.

Many of the Top Bloggers will have good blogs.

You are probably mostly right. But I have a friend that was an Alaskan state trooper. He was on two episodes of that show. It's all real. Except for the part where they have to accommodate the camera operators, which they wouldn't normally do.