Why do people think it's ridiculous to be cautious about meeting people from the internet?

I think with the internet, people can make up their own character and portray a false impression of themselves. Take my reply for instance. I can take my time forming sentences and editing it so it sounds to cater for a specific audience..ie you. However in face to face conversation I don't have time to sit there and carefully plan my replies. I think that's why when some people meet a 'friend' from the internet, they are shown a person who they were not expecting.

You should absolutely be cautious and should take reasonable precautions when meeting for the first time, such as meeting in a public place with plenty of people around and on neutral territory. If you throw caution to the wind then you might just end up a statistic.

Talking to people on the internet is relatively harmless if people don’t send much information about themselves but with pictures, names, locations and all that and scams and hacking being popular it’s best to be cautious.

People on internet are weird I haven't met anyone irl with so many weird ideas the way I have seen here. I would be double cautious.

better be safe than sorry

It's not a ridiculous idea... a lot of people are still cautious about it but most of these cautious people prefers not to mingle online since they are aware of the dangers..

I think I’d have to have a pretty strong relationship and knowledge base of who they really are irl first

Internet is loaded with the sickos

I don’t think it’s ridiculous if both parties know what they are doing. It’s ridiculous when someone falls in love with someone without knowing who they are and travel to a foreign country to meet them, that too, without ever seeing them once.

It's not ridiculous and some people will say it's the norm because it suits them

Ey, the way I see it............. Darwin's law and all that.... If people get murdered because of their own lack of competence then hey yo... ┬┴┬┴┤-ᴥ-ʔ

No one but a potential rapist or murderer thinks its ridiculous to be cautious about meeting people from the internet.