I think many people see it as normal/expected.

Yes, that’s it. People born in the early part of last century (my grandparent’s era) only knew over-the-air TV which in the US included commercials. It was just part of reality, like billboards by the highway.

No, to get 69, you have to divide 14,000 by 202.8985507 first.

Before that happens, they will just use all that screenshot data to train their AIs.

also see !fosai@lemmy.world

Golly!

Wondering if perhaps a prepaid sim card paid for using a prepaid credit card would do the trick?

I paid cash for a dirt-cheap fliphone and a prepaid Tracfone card to set up an account with SMS but near-zero data, just for these purposes. It worked for me for google last month, but YMMV.

I created a google account last month, using a new chromebook hooked up to wifi. It let me create the account without a phone number, let me install software etc. Then when I rebooted, it demanded a phone number because of “suspicious traffic”. (wtf?)

Yeah, but I still post links to Bandcamp, even though they’ve gone down that path. One day they’ll cross the line, and I’ll start posting links to other services.

Time to update this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification#Reddit

One time I put in my card, but the pump couldn’t show me an ad because it crashed. My card was stuck in the pump. The guys inside tried resetting the pump but that didn’t work, so they said it’d be a week before someone came around to fix it. I had to cancel the card and get a new number. All because I couldn’t watch the ads.

I think getting this practice phased out would require a sustained social media campaign. Otherwise the MBAs just see mysterious fluctuations on their charts, and they’ll make up some vaguely-political theories about Millenials.

Still early in the enshittification cycle. It’ll happen eventually.

You say that ironically, but in the early days of Google its motto was “Do No Evil” and it promoted non-intrusive advertising. There was this sense that Google was a company of engineers and that you could trust them.

(disclaimer: I didn’t trust them.)

Renting is owning.

Downloading is theft.

"War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength."

Well, if you want to be sure that Reddit deleted your data, the time to bring it up is now. Ask questions, contact journalists, demand answers.