I always feel awkward responding to them, because I don't know if I'm typing `Hello $FIRSTNAME` or `Hello $LASTNAME`.
Are you aware that it is polite to start a convo with people from South Asia with a small greeting? They wait for you to ack. If you don't ack, they will not continue.
It is an important part of intercultural communication to continuously adapt to different communication styles.
Why don't people write a tiny chatbot that applies to certain users? When the person says: "Hello." The bot can reply: "Hello!" It seems easy enough.
Which is possibly one of the (admittedly probably very minor) reasons why they were left so far behind economically. Focusing on form over function in communication can be very counterproductive.
Not that I'm saying that saying "Hello, how are you?" to someone is waste of time. However certain people/cultures really go overboard with this and expected outsider to comply with these norms when they have much better things to do is not the most sensible idea.
You are entitled to no adaptation from others. Your reactions to their "errors" are your problem, and your responsibility, although of course you can choose to start a fight over whatever you want.
On the other hand, if you do not adapt to them, sometimes they will choose to start a fight over it, or be offended, or whatever. As such, if you want to improve your social outcomes, consider allocating energy to adapting to others.
See? Simple. No centralized decision-making necessary. Each person can ruin their own life however they choose.
Asking for a hello is holding the information until I'm engaged, at which point we should just meet for 5 minutes because it will be faster.
Say, you're in the same town as a friend and want to meet them. The American approach might be to ask, "Hey, I'm in town. Want to hang out?" The sender has done their job of delivering a clear message.
But some cultures would just say, "Hey, I'm in town."
That removes the pressure from the other person to say no, I don't want to see you.
You can also bat it back and say, "Joe's is a nice place to eat if you like burgers," which hints that you're available to have lunch together, but it could also mean a polite "ok".
But the ack is there to make sure the other person is paying attention before delivering the message, so they don't misinterpret it.
I don't necessarily think one is better. TCP vs UDP. If it's an important message, an American might still say, "We have to talk."
Mandatory reference to nohello.net/en/
Clickable English: https://nohello.net/en/
Starting a full message with your request/business with a greeting is basic decency with no harm.
I mean otherwise it's like literally any other communication medium, and you'll have to either take a culturally-appropriate respectful best effort guess at a preferred address, or just ask.