3 ms·

I get where the author is coming from, but I feel like his conclusion is reductionist. Yes, on the one extreme you have Facebook, and the other extreme is say

I get where the author is coming from, but I feel like his conclusion is reductionist. Yes, on the one extreme you have Facebook, and the other extreme is say Mastodon, but there's also a huge middle way which is well populated. This week I've browsed hacker news, Wikipedia, done some research for an upcoming trip, kept up with OpenSSL and Jquery (yeah, that's still around, and still useful.) I bought some waterproofing (direct from the manufacturer), looked up nearby steel manufacturers, and looked up the phone number of my electrician (on his site). In cases where I feel I might be tracked, I just open an incognito browser [1]. Mostly though (apart from news) I don't really find myself on sites driven by advertising. If you spend your day on social media, news sites, or buying everything online, then sure, I get it, you're gonna get tracked. But that's really (for me) a tiny part of my browser history. Everyone is different I guess. [1] yeah I know, tracking is more than cookies, but I see so few ads anyway I haven't even bothered to load an ad-blocker. Then again, I'm not on social media...

hightrix 3y ago
Replied to wrong comment
palata 3y ago
> Everyone is different I guess. If you are not on any social media and not logged into google, then you are really in a very small minority.
mrweasel 3y ago
> I bought some waterproofing (direct from the manufacturer), looked up nearby steel manufacturers, and looked up the phone number of my electrician (on his site). Perhaps a little side tracked here, but the internet has basically become useless for DIY projects lately. We're renovating and needed some advise on which kind of paint to use for a particular project and we have given up on using the internet for advise. SEO, bad translations and straight-up scams have prevent us from finding even the most basic information. Instead we just go to the paint store and ask there. They also know exactly what kind of paint, wallpaper and tools are available and don't recommend stuff that's can only be shipped from the US or China. So congratulation, we broke the internet and we now back at consulting local experts in physical stores.... Brilliant.

hightrix 3y ago

Replied to wrong comment

palata 3y ago

> Everyone is different I guess. If you are not on any social media and not logged into google, then you are really in a very small minority.

mrweasel 3y ago

> I bought some waterproofing (direct from the manufacturer), looked up nearby steel manufacturers, and looked up the phone number of my electrician (on his site). Perhaps a little side tracked here, but the internet has basically become useless for DIY projects lately. We're renovating and needed some advise on which kind of paint to use for a particular project and we have given up on using the internet for advise. SEO, bad translations and straight-up scams have prevent us from finding even the most basic information. Instead we just go to the paint store and ask there. They also know exactly what kind of paint, wallpaper and tools are available and don't recommend stuff that's can only be shipped from the US or China. So congratulation, we broke the internet and we now back at consulting local experts in physical stores.... Brilliant.