Then let's get rid of the business internet. Every single thing I dislike about the internet is from the business internet: tracking, cookies, fingerprinting, SPAs, excessive javascript, optimizing for engagement, data brokers, I could go on.
"But won't you miss XYZ?" Nope, don't care, want it gone. If you can't be bothered to go to the store and get it then it probably didn't matter very much.
To me, it would be enough if there existed a search engine which only lists sites which do nothing of the above. But that would require that sites are honestly answering the question "are you tracking?". They won't. Corps have the same thinking as the criminals they try to keep outside.
There would have to be laws which require site owners to answer that question honestly, so that users have a choice and such a search engine can be built. But states are interested in fingerprinting too, so I guess such will never happen.
Based on your comment it sounds like you rarely travel (booking hotel / flights online), don’t have mobility issues (ordering groceries / household essentials online), don’t participate in online banking (do you write checks? carry cash with you all the time? go to an ATM weekly?), you don’t stream movies or tv shows, and you enjoy looking for apartments to rent in your local newspaper listing, and you enjoy using paper maps when traveling around the city and world. I could go on…
literally everything useful works on the business internet. Also how do you think local businesses near you operate? They don’t call each like the 1900s lol. They order stock from distributors, some local and some overseas. Often they are doing this on the business internet. Today’s global supply chain makes this a non-starter.
It’s OK if YOU personally prefer doing everything slowly and in person and don’t value the convenience of the business internet. No judgment. But don’t pretend this would be an easy transition at all. Or that most people would prefer to live that way.
IMO it would make _way_ more sense to introduce reasonable privacy regulations that are better thought out than GDPR and have proper enforcement.
Maybe a formal “community” version of the internet would be appropriate as well.
>you rarely travel (booking hotel / flights online)
Yes, and I really dislike traveling when I have to. I personally wish that air travel would become unaffordable for most people, including myself.
>don’t have mobility issues (ordering groceries / household essentials online)
No, but mobility issues existed before the modern internet.
>don’t participate in online banking (do you write checks? carry cash with you all the time? go to an ATM weekly?)
I do online banking, but I also write checks and use cash. I don't use Venmo or similar services. Once I can get ahead of my chores & projects I'm thinking about getting a local branch at a credit union and totally avoiding a banking app on my smart phone.
>you don’t stream movies or tv shows
Sometimes, but I'm getting away from it. Interestingly I'm getting a blank screen (but there's still audio) when attempting to stream on Linux. I haven't fully researched it, but some preliminary research suggests that it's anti-Linux blocking. (at least one user reported the problem went away -- in a repeatable fashion -- when switching their use agent to Windows) So although this is not confirmed, I'm preparing for a time when this is unavoidable and I won't stream movies or TV whatsoever at that point.
> and you enjoy looking for apartments to rent in your local newspaper listing
Don't see anything wrong with this. I would actually argue that you don't need authentication in the way discussed in this conversation for this, though -- all you need is the listing, which can be totally anonymous. The actual application for the apartment can happen in person, and that's when verification needs to occur.
>you enjoy using paper maps when traveling around the city and world.
I use an old-fashioned GPS in my car that I paid well over $100 for a number of years ago. There's no tracking whatsoever, unlike the GPS used in a smart phone.
>literally everything useful works on the business internet.
>Also how do you think local businesses near you operate? They don’t call each like the 1900s lol. They order stock from distributors, some local and some overseas
Except we did fine for most of human history before all this. And I'm sure there were no such think as stock orders or warehouses or supply chains before the modern internet. They cropped up over night the moment the first tracking cookie existed. /s
"But won't you miss XYZ?" Nope, don't care, want it gone. If you can't be bothered to go to the store and get it then it probably didn't matter very much.