It's unfortunately no longer enough to force websites to check your government-issued ID before you can access certain content, because politicians have now discovered that people are using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect their privacy and bypass these invasive laws. Their solution? Entirely ban the use of VPNs.
Thank God I’m not in the USA, but it gradually gets worse everywhere.
The moment the average Joe could access the net, was the begin of its downfall. And it hurts me to see one of the greatest inventions of all time to get more shitty day by day.
Also, VPNs might be outlawed, but that just means vpns for the masses. If you throw money at the problem, you’d still have a VPN. Doesn’t even need to be much money, though that’s relative.
The moment billionaires coopted the internet was when it went downhill. They knew the threat it posed, the vision of the early cypherpunks, and made sure the internet wouldn’t do that to their power.
Decentralization and accessibility are good things. Elitism and exclusionary practices do nothing good.
Wouldn’t even pin the early problems on the billionaires. Every corpo smelled money in the net. Every scammer and similar dirtbag. That, in combination with the average joe being able to “surf” was a bad combo. Like everything else where a clueless mass meets greed.
The net is great, i love it. don’t get me wrong. Decentralization was kinda a core of the net. Usenet, IRC…everything was great, simple, redundant and fool-proof (i mean, it’s still there and kicking). Even google was great when they emerged.
Very nuanced. Thank you for your thoughtful response!
Heavily depends on what “outlawed” means.
I am certainly capable of implementing low cost workarounds to purely technical anti-VPN-measures, but certainly would not risk going to jail just for trying it.
Essentially boils down to the old saying:
“If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.”
Fair point. Though using a PC you rent someplace foreign can’t be outlawed. Not even in the US. I’d argue the ban would be the usual kind that just has a list of banned IPs which are “shared devices”. Everything else would be death for all companies and whatnot. For me a reason to emigrate.