The problem is that mean speech correlates with more damaging behavior downstream, like violence or libel. So it's a conservative act of self protection to ghost/avoid individuals who use mean speech. I for one tend to avoid them. And I question how much I could actually learn from them if they have yet to develop a basic sense of social decency.

This is the base case. I understand that there are more extreme cases where you "win" in some specific ways if you keep stomaching mean speech.