IP addresses are not anonymous. Have you tried to make your IP address anonymous, e.g., with Tor or one of those NordVPN-like companies? (not picking on Nord, though they deserve to be picked on - they're just the most advertised.)
You'll find CAPTCHAs almost everywhere, outright 403s or dropped connections in a lot of places. Even Google won't serve you sometimes.
The reason you're not seeing that situation right now is that your IP address is identifiable.
I see captchas all the time on my home internet connection without a VPN these days. That era seems to be ending, probably because AI scraping is now using residential IP blocks.
There's been talk on NANOG about whole residential ISPs getting marked as VPNs now. Turns out selling excessive security to businesses is easy, I guess. Like CrowdStrike.
anonymity and the open web are different things, and neither of them were promised/guaranteed to anyone on the internet.
For people that value anonymity, they'll create their own spaces. People that value openness will continue to be open.
What we're about to find out is what happens when the tide goes out and people show you what they really believe/want -- anything other than that is a form of social control, whether via browbeating or other means.
> anonymity and the open web are different things, and neither of them were promised/guaranteed to anyone on the internet. > > For people that value anonymity, they'll create their own spaces. People that value openness will continue to be open
Hardly anything of what's the internet today was promised, but who are you to decide what the internet has to become now, and that people with different ideas need to confine themselves in their own ghettos?
Everyone values privacy, it's just out of social pressure if most give up so much of it.
> What we're about to find out is what happens when the tide goes out and people show you what they really believe/want -- anything other than that is a form of social control, whether via browbeating or other means
