Well I guess I am not surprised there is some disagreement with my blanket statements.

Here's why swivels are useless. Most of your fishing is going to involve fashioning a makeshift pole or a drop line from the bank. If you have 20 yards of braid or mono, you will probably be able to make 3-4 such set ups w/ 5-7 yards of line. One end ties to pole or bank and other hook. No need to join lines. If you do need to join lines you should learn how to tie a proper know instead of relying on only a terminal knot and a swivel.

The stuff about twisting lines is an interesting theory, but when I regularly used to set trot lines for catfish, I got more straightened hooks than broken lines. And that's back when we used dacron. A good spectra line ain't going to break with 99% of the freshwater fish you will ever encounter in North America/Canada.

And, heck if folks want to take 10 or 100 fish hooks instead of the 4 I have, they're welcome to do so.

And, while I don't want to go into full snark mode here, I will hate to think about what some poor schlub who can't learn how to tie two knots is going to do if they actually catch a fish. Their brain is obviously too crammed full of info to know how to fillet or bone or prepare a fish. I guess they'll just go into survivalman mode like one of those guys on TV and start chewing away at the fish's head or something.

Oh, finally one serious comment - it's generally a bad idea to use swivels to connect your bait hook to the line because the flash from the swivel can scare away wary fish. You want to disguise the hook in the bait as much as possible. I guess you could buy matte black swivels if you have your heart set on them.

And, finally, I guess I should note that most of the time I am out on the river I usually have 2-300 flies/hooks/lures with me so I should probably keep my mouth shut about being economical about these things.