You can make plenty of friends in channels. They're just like forum friends.

Why would you stay in a channel?...

Not everyone is going to want to play games 24/7.

Yeah, but I don't spend my free time sitting in a channel talking to random bnetters. You're odd. <_<

If i want to chat with random sc2 players, i'd much rather do it on these forums than in b.net channels. Besides, I don't ever want to run into people like Centreri in those channels; would make my life miserable

OH WHY YOU LITTLE

We used channels pretty much everytime we played back in the day. How many times didn't we just sit around in OP SEN or Clan (U) and talk... a lot? Make fun of people, discuss mapmaking ideas and such? Make fun of people while we decide what game to play. Then make fun of whoever made the game because nobody joined because the chat conversation was just too awesome to leave behind.

You don't meet people in Brood War U.S. #1, you do it in-game or on a website, and then you go to a channel to chat with them between games.

We're not talking about the public channels, we're talking about the private ones. Back in the day, I'd chill in channels like clan GgG, clan ID, clan ScVz, op ICL, op nflx, op obs-. You'd have pubs gathering there all the time.