or even pseudo-incriminated for attempting to maintain our own life.
It seems so stupid that I’m like a suspect for wanting an exchange of information without dropping my pants and bending over. No, I don’t want cookies. Yes I want to read the article but no, I don’t want to “sign up.”
It makes me feel like being a f*cking hermit. But I prefer to pirate. Even though I’m not that good at it. Screw them. I got two private trackers, a VPN, and I hope that’s enough.
It seems so strange to me that everyone buys the bullshit that personal data is worth very little.
The data brokerage industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Yet, there are only ~8 billion people in the world, many of whom don’t have internet access or have very little data being traded. Thus it’s reasonably safe to assume that an average regular internet user’s data is worth somewhere in the region of $1,000 per year.
These companies don’t do anything with the data. We create the data, they collect it and sell it, then whoever buys it is the one that actually makes something from it. If we allow the brokers a very generous profit margin, they are still stealing $500-700 from every one of us, every year.
The efficacy of advertising is sold primarily by advertisers. It’s possibly worth a vanishing fraction of what these ghouls say it’s worth. But so long as buying it and acting like a greedy invasive bastard is more profitable than ignoring it, even by a tiny margin, corporate giants will keep doing it, since the cost to them is a rounding error.
The industry enabling this is large because they get to sell the same garbage to so many bastards.
If you’re online. You need to assume that your data is being used without your permission whether you like it or not. Nothing is going to change. Look at the hordes of brain dead idiots who use tiktok
Whatever you are getting your hands into remember that there’s plenty of free alternatives and libre products available in the public domain. Supporting these is a good way to unsupport the closed counterpart.
As an OSS advocate, I fully agree. Sadly, OSS alternatives have to compete with easily accessible, slick and well-integrated products that are aggressively positioned. Just imagine all the steps you need to go through, just to install Fennec from F-Droid.
I just installed Fennec from F-Droid and it was like three steps. Search, install, and confirm install. I guess if I didn’t already have F-Droid, it would be more steps to install it, but that’s not too hard either, and you only have to do it once.
It’s easy for you and me. But imagine you’re Joe Everyman. First off, you need to know about F-Droid and where to download it. Then confirm that the browser can install software. And this is where I would imagine many users second-guessing if everything’s legit. And after it’s installed, you’ve got two separate app-stores to deal with. You need to know what you can install where.
If I extrapolate from my mother-in-law, who still can’t wrap her head around the concept of an app-store, let alone alternative browsers, that’s just too much hassle for most people.
The NYT, Guardian, BBC and many others have onion sites you can access via tor that have none of that shit because they assume you’re a Chinese dissident or something (and no ads).
Yeah it’s weird how privacy and piracy have blended together over the years.
With some games you need to pirate them if you don’t want a Russian nesting doll of launchers and accounts that are able to leak your information and fill your computer with bloat.
I do find the argument interesting some YouTubers try to make about ad blockers being a form of piracy.
To be fair, it makes sense to liken the use of ad blockers with piracy. Consuming the content without paying for it either way, either without directly paying yourself or without indirectly paying through watching ads. Doesn’t change that ads on most parts of the internet are extremely invasive and far too much.
I feel fully entitled to protect myself from the ads because of the problems with them. But I don’t feel the need to lie to myself about the fact that I’m consuming content without paying for it in some way. Then again I support some content creators that I feel deserve it. Not sure if that helps offset it somewhat or not, but I don’t really care that much either.
I remember the Internet in the early to late 90s. What a magical time it was. I’ve said for years now that giant corporations are going to basically buy out the Internet and pidgin hole you into using their services. They’ve basically accomplished that goal.
This is why we need a p2p mesh internet.
Everyone: “But Explodicle, the bandwidth will be terrible!”
Meh, all we really need is basic communication infrastructure that isn’t hostile. Everything else I can wait to download… like the 90s.
