You're not alone and I sympathize. This subject has come up on HN before but I'm too lazy to search for it. The consensus seems to be that although many people

You're not alone and I sympathize. This subject has come up on HN before but I'm too lazy to search for it. The consensus seems to be that although many people including web developers hate captchas, spam is a genuine problem and there isn't a good enough alternative to captchas for opposing it in the worst cases. If you can think of a more effective and respectful method I'm sure many people would be interested in your solution.