It all boils down to a willingness to my view. It seems that you are pointing to the technical perspective. i am only talking from a user’s perspective. We have multiple incompatible and incomplete solutions now. That is definitely nit the best situation for us.
So my point is: joining hands is better jn this case, for us.
Not saying that this is expected to happen in our lifetimes though, because: commerce 
Do you speak from personal experience? I really want to get an opinion from someone who is like myself and has been using a network for a respectable amount of time and not someone who speaks from ignorance (no disrespect intended).
EDIT: I am going to send you a PM of why above everything VATSIM and IVAO wouldn’t work together.
None at the moment. Wanting to get more familiar with the FBW 320, then it’ll most probably be Vatsim.
Default atc + Phraseology Mod + aig…works great..peace
What I read from your link is that initially this started as a joint venture. And after a while IVAO separated. The original joint venture SATCO was dissolved and the original founders started VATSIM a while later.
So “because: commerce” should maybe read “because: people” in my post above.
The end result is the same though.
People are saying here that controllers are hard to find in the area they want to fly in. My logic thinking says: is this because the controllers are spread across multiple networks. Could we have a better situation when the controllers, who are doing a great job for the community, are all on the same network?
I fail to see what experience with the one or other network has to do with this argumentation?
IVAO pooling into VATSIM isn’t going to really fix this. You fail to understand that training to become an ATC on VATSIM is more difficult than it is on IVAO. You can’t be under the assumption that IVAO controllers are going to want to become VATSIM controllers therefore doesn’t mean more coverage. Then there is the pilot side of things, people say that IVAO is far more relaxed than VATSIM.
So, if I paraphrase you correctly: IVAO more relaxed but a little less formal and maybe less realistic for some. VATSIM: more realistic, but more stressful, because one really needs to do it ‘right’ (both pilot and controller).
I always thought that the rookie of newbie entry in the flight plan would take care of the fear for a too formal approach in Vatsim?
More or less correct. As for “too formal” for a new pilot I don’t know what you mean.
Meaning: formal in the sense of ‘following strict rules’
The rules one must follow are in the CoC (which aren’t difficult) and applicable to all. Weather you have 5 hours or 5,000 hours it doesn’t matter, you must follow the same rules.
Putting that you’re new in the remarks section of your flight plan or letting them know you’re new over the radio just gives the controller a heads up. It lets them know ahead of time that you may make a lot of mistakes, may need things said a lot slower and / or may need just a bit of things explained.
VATSIM is however saturated with pilots that know exactly what they’re doing, controllers moreso. Virtually all big events that I’ve took part of have pilots that know what they’re doing. I’ve heard of pilots who are totally new take part in very big events and personally not something I recommend. There are events for new pilots such as First Wings which I think is wonderful.
I think some meaning is lost in the discussion here between @Maki152 and @GhostlyFrend..
You don’t actually need to merge the networks at all, I think this is what Ghostly is getting at, you just need everyone (users) to go to one of them and the other will evaporate on its own. If there are not enough users to justify the time spent controlling, then the controllers would jump ship too, and then boom, the market sorts the problem out.
I agree that there are too many and it dilutes the pilots and the controllers, Focusing everyone into fewer would improve everything. The down side is it kills a product. But, since these are both FREE services, its not really taking dinner off anyone’s table if one goes away. Its just the maybe nostalgic loss of an obsolete platform. We’ve all lived through it before, we’ll all live through it again. No big deal.
I sincerely disagree with Maki’s position that VATSIM is exclusively the domain of competent pilots. That is fantasy. I have never completed a flight on VATSIM without hearing a new pilot out there trying to get his ducks in a row. AND furthermore, most (not all) of the Vatsim controllers are very accommodating when time allows, to help these guys learn the ropes and at least get them linked to the info they need to do better. Some of the controllers on Vatsim I’ve heard go so far assisting that frankly there ought to be some kind of medal for them. Because I woulda snapped if I was in their seat.
I have also run into novice controllers who haven’t got it all sorted out yet. This never happens with enroute or approach, but it can happen with local towers at smaller airports (because thats where they train).
This idea that vatsim is some highminded collective of super serious ace pilots and pro controllers is just silly. There is massive variation in skill level. And no new pilot should be afraid of it, as long as they take the time to read and understand the tutorials and educational pages. Anyone not willing to put in the time to learn a little bit of how to talk to ATC probably doesn’t want to use a service anyhow.
So what I’m getting at there is that anyone who has gotten to the point that they want live atc, probably has the ability and desire to do the basic learning. But I would caution that if you’re a simmer who likes to jam out in an airliner from a major airport, you might want to take a step back and learn the basics in something small without too much systems management so you can focus on the ATC stuff without getting overwhelmed trying to reprogram your FMC because you got a routing change (ask me how I learned).
Exclusively? I don’t think I said that, at least I didn’t try to imply that. I’ve helped many, many learn the ropes of VATSIM and yeah, I’ve came across numerous people who were very new. A hot topic I’ve been involved in is pilot competency or the lack thereof which is it’s own thing, not related to new pilots willing to learn. VATSIM is indeed open arms to new pilots. I am not saying that on VATSIM everyone will dot the i’s and cross the t’s’ however I flew the event tonight in VATUSA and while I didn’t hear every frequency the ones I did hear the ATC and pilots were very good. Only problem I came across were two pilots that were not responding to the controller.
As have I, I leave feedback on the ARTCC website.
Yeah, Events are usually staffed with the best guys. Pilots are never guaranteed 
I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth as far as ‘Exclusively’ I was just kinda writing in the stream of thought. However it did seem to be a theme that its somehow a higher level. I don’t think it is. I think its just that everyone needs to actually take the time to learn it, so it appears to be better. But, again, any pilot who actually wants live ATC is probably at the point where they are also ready to learn how to fly in a controlled airspace, so I think it sorts itself out (as long as we don’t scare anyone off with an impression that the skill level is actually that high among the pilots).
I think the big problem with sim pilots right now is that everyone thinks IFR is the only way.. IFR and Jets or you’re just nobody… And thats just wrong headed.
People should learn in the order they’d learn real planes, start small start VFR, and move up from there. At least if they plan to fly in live atc. I have a blast flying single engine props VFR in vatsim. Sometimes actively using ATC, sometimes actively flying under or over the airspaces to avoid them. Same as I did in real flying.
People make it hard on themselves by trying to fly above their actual ability. It’s not the network doing that.
No worries and happy I got feedback from another VATSIM user even if it’s some disagreement, nothing wrong with that! I don’t want my opinion to be fact, I’m just one user of many afterall. 
I love flying under VFR myself and in light GA aircraft on VATSIM and I’ve heard of controllers that like such traffic. I personally hop in Discord and teach people in a single-engine piston and under VFR first.
This is directed at all the other readers, not at you, Maki…
Another thought on pilots overstepping their skill.
As much as I love simbrief for tubeliner stuff, I really wish there was some skills test before you’re allowed to use it 
My fellow simmers, aviation is NOT done by plugging a origin and destination into boxes and having the computer spill out a bunch of stuff to auto load into your FMC without ever taking a second to know what all that information means.
Learn flight planning, its fun, you get to look at lots of maps and think about how to do things. People who go straight to simbrief without ever taking time to learn a little about how flight planning is done are missing a huge piece of the action.
Flying six hours at FL380 in an airplane that doesn’t even care if you’re in the seat is not fun, you can not convince me that it is. Planning and executing a flight that makes sense thats the good stuff. Be fair to yourselves and learn it.
I like to do that too, when I can find people that want to learn. Its a lot of fun to share the knowledge and see others pick it up. I worked with a guy about a year ago who bought the sim because it was a hot title, didn’t really know why he bought it, and was getting bored of lawn-darting airliners for giggles. He wanted to try to get his head around why so many people seem to love it. So we started from a 172 just like you would in real world.
I haven’t heard from him in a long time, but he had moved on to real world flying lessons last time I talked to him.
I personally enjoy Vatsim. As a personal preference over automated ATC, although most of the time, there are not that many controllers online, so there is an aton of missing coverage.
In Sim ATC for me it sux tho..Can only hope it will get better over time
Coming upto a approach they tell me to desend to say 5000ft then wants me to climb to 12000ft lol
I use the ingame ATC as background chatter on volume 10/100.
Pilot2ATC for many years,
the sim’s ATC is too broken for my liking