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Comment by tgv | Hacker News Reader

The GDPR does make UX worse. If you have to click away a cookie banner, it's because companies love to try to coax you into accepting as many cookies as they can get their grubby hands on. Storing a cookie for session administration is acceptable. You don't even have to announce it. It wouldn't make much sense, because it's less useful than your IP address (for the purposes of tracking). Only if the site wants to do more, it must get the user's permission.

> nanny state

Sadly, technology is nearly incomprehensible to most people, and the state must protect their rights. The rest is either an authoritarian or libertarian fantasy under the pretense of liberty.

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> Sadly, technology is nearly incomprehensible to most people, and the state must protect their rights. The rest is either an authoritarian or libertarian fantasy under the pretense of liberty.

So I’m sure you’re in favor of Apple’s “walled garden” to protect ignorant users, you want to make alcohol, cigarettes, sugar and everything else illegal that’s bad for users?

It’s sad that so many people are willing to give up their own agency because they don’t trust themselves to make intelligent choices.

No one gave up their agency. The laws are a reflection of choices people freely made of their own will about how they want their data protected.

People didn’t make the choice. The government did.

People elected the government. The people made the choice. GDPR and other privacy protections are also widely supported by most people in Europe. It's so popular with the average person that vver 17 countries have already adopted laws based on GDPR. And it's common sense: most people like privacy and don't like someone invading their privacy.

So you're a libertarian, I guess. Abolishing protection doesn't bring freedom, it brings anarchy and in its wake, the right of the strongest. Look at the 19th century. Do you want to live in Dickensian horror? Because that's the alternative. There's no bucolic paradise awaiting after abolishing labor and health regulations. There's only exploitation of the weak.

We give up a bit of control to avoid losing more. That's a social contract that has worked very well, and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm sure you also benefit from it.

Yes, I’m sure there was anarchy on the internet before we had to deal with cookie banners.

You lose no control by not using FB.

Facebook loses no control by not operating in countries where they can't obey the laws. You keep focusing on individual choice but conveniently never include Facebook as a party perfectly capable of making choices too.

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