💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 4341 captured on 2023-11-04 at 15:47:12. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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I've recently been gifted a new smartphone (which I can't really give up using 'cause it has functions I need that a brick phone lacks) and the sheer amount of things I had to decline, uninstall and remove permissions from was frustrating and horrifying. Recently I've been moving away from music streaming services in favor of good old mp3s or actual CDs, and then as soon as I boot up regular in-built mp3 player of this phone... It gives me ads and recommendations like a full on streaming service? Just play my goddamn music I already have on the SD card, you don't need internet connection for that?

A certain incident made me recently realize that everything I said and did online was interconnected, easily trackable to my real identity and, to add insult to injury, filed under an advertising profile of what ads to shove in my face based on that identity. That, honestly, scared me. As you can see, I'm trying to be better about it (and I deleted most of my social network profiles apart from some I need tor work), but that doesn't feel enough.

And as I buy a concert ticket online - my family in the same household starts suddenly getting ads for that concert everyday, despite us not even talking about it and them being totally uninterested in the said band. Being regularly connected to the same Wi-Fi as me is enough, apparently.

I will say, though, I don't think America is the only one to blame here (saying this as a non-American). Feels like a collective mistake we humans are making, even if American capitalism somewhat takes the lead.

I do hope to live to see this way of things break, although there's no way of knowing if the next thing will be better or even worse.

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~milf_god wrote (thread):

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying! Everything on the modern web these days is bugged and full of trackers when we're just trying to do the most simple and mundane things online just for the government and corporations to add more data on us to their secret consumer profiles they made for us. I also definitely agree this is not solely an American thing...which is exactly why I have fled to very quiet and obscure corners of the internet...like this pub! I love being online, I just really hate what it has become.