Water Boy76
Contributor
A dive buddy is someone your paired up with in OW training. After that, they are no longer required.
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An "insta-buddy" is not an true buddy unless you're somehow able to go over a dive plan, expectations, contingencies, hand signals, etc.--which is usually not practical. So in most cases, I would say an insta-buddy is simply not a true buddy.
Limited to true buddies, I think the buddy system is alive and well.
As best I can can tell the options are
1. Bring a buddy.
2. Instabuddy.
3. Find a boat that will allow solo diving. It's not something I've ever asked about so I don't know how common or uncommon this is.
4. Hire a DM.