[kaffeeringe]

These days you need an internet-device and an anti-internet-device like a Pi-Hole plus half a dozen browser plugins. Every driver of every part of your computer is trying to sneak out some of you data. Every website is full of trackers. You are not only fighting off criminals but also some of the most powerful corporations and every government. A hand full of companies run large parts of the infrastructre - you couldn't live without Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon if you wanted. The central social networks are hate and manipulation machines. Everything wants to sell you something. And when you pay to buy it, it tries to steal your data anyways.

[Shared404]

This is what makes me the saddest. The internet has so much potential for good, but it doesn't appear to be heading that direction.

Every couple months I get an urge to give up on tech and start subsistence farming in the middle of nowhere.

[kordlessagain]

I was doing some work for a company and someone posted on Slack about ad blockers. I noted to everyone that I used ad blockers because I don't like how invasive ads have become.

The founder and CTO then proceeded to berate me in the channel for using a blocker. He had made a lot of money over the years from writing code that helped ads figure out what content to target for a user.

I still use an ad blocker, but have added Disable Javascript to all my browsers as well, just in case they try to detect I'm blocking things.