oh no, other people aren't putting in the effort to sift trough information and organize it on my behalf.
it must be their fault for even trying, not mine for being a lazy ignorant liberal who probably isn't worth their scarce time and attention in the first place. </sarcasm>

This reminds me of one of the earliest debates I had on the internet; it was about 9/11 and the Pentagon.
Basically I took on the "Devil's advocate" position that a missile, rather than a plane, hit the Pentagon.
I held that position for days until I got so totally bored and frustrated with the useless opposing arguments, that I ended up making the argument against it myself.
And then I insulted basically everyone that tried arguing against me before, because I was an asshole.

Anyway, the existing evidence that was out there (video footage, analysis of debris, crash simulations, etc) was so conclusive and easy to find that I never took online debates seriously again;
in the sense that: if my opposition makes terrible arguments they could still be right, and it is my own responsibility to figure things out.

I hate bad arguments as much as anyone, but this is just a fact of life. Almost all good ideas are badly argued on internet forums.
If you want better arguments then it is your own responsibility to seek out books, evidence, insightful individuals, and more critical discourse.

The people who can make good arguments are rarely going to spend much of their time on those who are not putting in the effort themselves.

There are more efficient ways to spend our efforts than arguing online with random individuals.
For example, helping more prominent commentators hone their arguments, those will be heard by thousands of people, instead of debating on tiny internet forums.
Or debate with people where we already have more agreements, so we can get into the details, and really hone our positions and argumentative skills.

My approach to arguing online is to pick my battles; choose threads with many viewers, only engage if you can decisively win, focus on a specific point not broad arguments, ensure everyone leaves with new information, and get people into the mode of "thinking together" rather than defensively.
To do this effectively you need to know more, you need to be able to pull from many sources and jump on opportunities instead of having pet arguments; you need to be adaptable.

(edit: I know some leftists prefer to be aggressive/dismissive, instead of arguing much of anything, but I've honestly never seen that be effective; although the best approach obviously depends on context)

In fact, being adaptable is the greatest force; if you can just convince people that they are arguing with someone that is beyond their capacity, that goes a very long way.
And it is not possible to do that by walking well trodden ground. (the risk, obviously, is that you can over extend yourself; as I often do in more friendly debates...)

The reality is that nobody holds specific altogether falsifiable positions; we have systems of thought, and changing them is 'death by a thousand cuts' not single conclusive arguments.
For example, see this summary of Imre Lakatos on the development of science, or listen to personal accounts of religious deconversion, such as the one by Prplfox.

It might feel like there are one or two things that finally changed your position, but you've probably just forgotten all the other things that had to change first.
All humans have consistency bias; we systematically misremember our past opinions as resembling those we currently hold.

Also, it took six months, but you got there; so mission accomplished. Yours is not a cautionary tale.