occassionally I am reminded exactly how vapid the discourse are open source has gotten - 20 years ago, there used to be discussions, now it's just 'google is SELLING EVERYONES DATA' instead of 'telemetry makes me uncomfortable'

when someone suggests X, instead of 'honestly, I think what I'm looking for is something free as in beer - no charge, no revenue' 'ugh X is no alternative, they do also make money in a way I don't like!'

the thing is, 20 years ago I was 10 and just trolling around slashdot, there shouldn't be _weaker_ arguments at 30

Soo... don't do the blockchain stuff. They have a built-in ad-blocker and I see very few ads. You install a blank page chrome extension and you don't see their new tab ads either. Practically, a chrome downstream-mod that strips as much telemetry and google spying as possible is a simpler way to get rid of the parts of chrome one doesn't like.