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It's the websites themselves that make the experience worse. Nobody forced them to have cookie pop up banners. GDPR simply forced them to be upfront about what

It's the websites themselves that make the experience worse. Nobody forced them to have cookie pop up banners. GDPR simply forced them to be upfront about what they're doing and get permission - and they chose to be in your face and dark-pattern about it. The "web experience" was infinitely better before ads and tracking infested everything.

scarface_74 3y ago
If given a choice, do you really think most users are singing the EUs praises about cookie pop ups and websites to be upfront? When was this mythical time the web wasn’t ad ridden? Do you not recall the pop up camera ads and the punch the monkey banner ads?
- wizofaus 3y ago
  I can't say exactly when I first noticed how pervasive and intrusive web advertising was getting but it was at least 10 years after I started using the web regularly (~1994).
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    The first web banner ad was in fact 1994. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-first-ever-banner-ad-on-the-web/523728/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-f... The x10 pop up windows were ubiquitous by 2001 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=88041&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=88041&page=1
    - wizofaus 3y ago
      Perhaps, but it didn't seem to badly affect the sites I mostly visited until much later.
- hypertele-Xii 3y ago
  > When was this mythical time the web wasn’t ad ridden? Seems like ages ago. Webrings and link directories. Every page was hand-made by a passionate human, for other passionate humans, about subjects they cared about. Now it's 99.99% ads, tracking, engagement, spam, link farms, generated garbage, outrage, and now AI nonsense. There's so little to bookmark (i.e. care about) that browsers dropped support for bookmarks. Just think about that. No place worth remembering nor revisiting anymore.
- danShumway 3y ago
  I have some issues with GDPR implementation but this is just straight-up disconnected from reality; GDPR is relatively popular in Europe. If anything, most stats that I've seen suggest that Europeans generally want privacy laws to go further.

scarface_74 3y ago

If given a choice, do you really think most users are singing the EUs praises about cookie pop ups and websites to be upfront? When was this mythical time the web wasn’t ad ridden? Do you not recall the pop up camera ads and the punch the monkey banner ads?

wizofaus 3y ago
I can't say exactly when I first noticed how pervasive and intrusive web advertising was getting but it was at least 10 years after I started using the web regularly (~1994).
- scarface_74 3y ago
  The first web banner ad was in fact 1994. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-first-ever-banner-ad-on-the-web/523728/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-f... The x10 pop up windows were ubiquitous by 2001 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=88041&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=88041&page=1
  - wizofaus 3y ago
    Perhaps, but it didn't seem to badly affect the sites I mostly visited until much later.
hypertele-Xii 3y ago
> When was this mythical time the web wasn’t ad ridden? Seems like ages ago. Webrings and link directories. Every page was hand-made by a passionate human, for other passionate humans, about subjects they cared about. Now it's 99.99% ads, tracking, engagement, spam, link farms, generated garbage, outrage, and now AI nonsense. There's so little to bookmark (i.e. care about) that browsers dropped support for bookmarks. Just think about that. No place worth remembering nor revisiting anymore.
danShumway 3y ago
I have some issues with GDPR implementation but this is just straight-up disconnected from reality; GDPR is relatively popular in Europe. If anything, most stats that I've seen suggest that Europeans generally want privacy laws to go further.