I'm from a generation when gopher was still in wide use. I remember those Flash animations from the 00s. I remember being optimistic in my youth about the inter

I'm from a generation when gopher was still in wide use. I remember those Flash animations from the 00s. I remember being optimistic in my youth about the internet and how it would change the world. Lots of thought leaders were writing about that. The way we live might have changed, but the world view from which we operate from did not. It should have been a red flag for me that the early commercialization of the Internet characterized it as a "land grab". I've come to the conclusion for myself that I don't like the internet as it is now. The advertising is annoying, but more importantly for me I don't like the idea of being defined by my user behavior, and getting sucked into a machine feedback loop with no real Purpose ... simply something that endlessly extracts value for no other reason than to extract value. So I find myself: 1. Repeatedly using the least amount of cookies every time I read it. When I come across papers posted here from _Nature_, I opt out of cookies. That means I do have to reselect those every time. 2. As a habit, I just do it out of all of the sites that offer this. I think part of this is that I have to pick and choose what I spend time reading 3. Yes, and there are workarounds for all of those. I also use adblock, but they are kinda like the mob and will let advertisers pay them to bypass the adblock. Sites that don't show me the content because they detect an adblock makes me think if I really want to read what is on there; if I do, I don't mind making a conscious choice to support the publication. If I am annoyed by it, I might try the Firefox Reader option. Or I don't read it. 4. It's not an advantage so much as aligning with how I have come to approach life. I've come to realize that much of our civilization is built upon Value Extraction. Whether that is for my limited time here on Earth, my focus and attention, very few businesses are built to give something back, or at least are value-adding (not "value added") -- something that contributes to and expands the capabilities and resources of the whole ecosystem beyond profitability.