GDPR Has Ruined the Web

Alternate title: "Companies would rather give users a horrible experience than not collect every last bit of data they can on them".

That's a bit of a clickbait title. But we do tend to underestimate and understate the negative effect of something "small" like a two second loss of time - even when it is repeated a hundred billion times.

From a way-too-literally utilitarian perspective, given that we're talking thousands of life-years here, the loss of potential productive or rewarding time wasted to automatically clicking on these disclaimers is in the same league as murdering hundreds of people. Now, I can't that too seriously. But maybe there is a nugget of wisdom about the seriousness of the harm in seemingly trivial losses, when they are multiplied across entire civilizations? Or maybe I just take UI design way too seriously.

None of this reads like "GDPR has ruined the web" - it reads like "shitty, abusive, scummy companies have ruined the web in ways that violate GDPR, intended to defraud users out of their data with dark patterns and illegal or close to it designs"

That extension already exists ... https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

“Ruining” is a bit strong, perhaps.

Peharps “making the first few seconds of visiting most sites slightly annoying” is a better description.

Have I been living under a rock and failed to notice Hey pivoted to the newsletter/blogging scene?

A better title might be, "User tracking has ruined the web, through targeted and intrusive advertising and exploitation, and by making GDPR necessary."

The title of this article makes no sense. In the article the author conveys a positive feeling toward GDPR and negative toward the site owners creating a miserable experience. Greedy, unethical, sloppy site owners are what's ruining the web, as outlined in this article.

It's click-bait. Not even good click-bait.

GDPR only ruined it for those who ruined the web for everyone else. The web works fine without tracking. The people who are hellbent on spying on innocent people are ruining the web.

Who knew regulatory compliance would have a net negative impact?