Did you actually read the answers you linked to? They say exactly the same thing: A distant observer never sees a blackhole form, but infalling matter does. Because GR has no such concept of simultaneity the two observers can never agree on when the black hole formed.<p>But since we are here on Earth we care about how it looks to a distant observer, and from our point of view black holes never form. And what the infalling matter sees is irrelevant to us.<p>NOTE: You do not need black holes to make gravity waves, neutron stars will also make them. But time is still enormously dilated by neutron stars, and I&#x27;m wondering how that affects the gravity waves they make.