In the year 1999, you went to a site, clicked "register", filled in basic info, and then you had an account. No CAPTCHAs. No e-mail verification in most cases. Absolutely no "phone verification". No fake error messages based on your IP address/"reputation score". No underhanded "oh, wait, you cannot have the account after all" messages after you've already registered. No evil "shadowbans"/bubbles. No photo IDs had to be scanned in and sent to the owners of the site. Nothing like that whatsoever. Those days are long gone...

• * Ever tried to ask any programming question on Stack Overflow/Exchange/whatever? Even if you type it perfectly, they will quickly vote it down out of spite, put it "on hold" (that's their newspeak term for "censoring it away"), not even read your question at all before "helping" (because they are only looking to increase their "reputation score" and have zero interest in actually helping), and then delete (or even modify) your own responses, while keeping the troll comments. And that's if you're lucky; normally, your question will be completely ignored.
  .
• * Did you know that there is an increasing number of people livestreaming their front porch 24/7, car or workplace on Twitch and other similar sites for anyone to watch and record? I don't doubt for a second that it's legal, since evil, mentally ill psychopaths are in charge of the law, but they definitely don't have my permission to video/audio record me walking by their house, buying something in their store, riding in their car, going anywhere near them, etc.
  .
• * I created an account at Mixer (video streaming, hoping that it would suck less than Twitch). Much to my initial surprise, it actually did let me register, and even sent the activation e-mail whose link I followed. However, when trying to log in to the "created" account, it then lets you know that "This e-mail address isn't allowed". Not another word. Just that. As if it were the registration form.
  .
• * To my horror, I discovered one day in 2019 that "anonymous" posting has been disabled on Slashdot. Registering an account involves a massive form of information, e-mail verification with an annoying forced "password reset", and of course a Google reCANCER blob. In other words, it's no longer possible to comment on articles. It was the last place where I could in any way make my little voice heard to a couple of other people.
  .
• * PayPal are literally thieves. I had a very old account, with "Premium" (I believe that's what they called it) status even, which they one day locked me out of. No explanation. No responses whatsoever to my questions about what they were doing or why. Total, utter silence. They kept all of the money in the account and I could never again use it in any way. (To add insult to injury, they have kept sending me regular automated spam e-mails ever since.) Years later, when I tried to buy some software which happened to use PayPal as their card payment processor (that is, not their normal accounts), I was denied by their system because they had permanently banned my Visa card as well from ever making any transactions through their system...
  .

If you're going to reply with "it works for me! You're doing it wrong...", then please understand that they don't harass people who they already have fully tracked. For example, if you use malicious spyware such as Google's Chrome "browser", or use your residential/"real" IP address, all is already lost from the beginning.

PS: A question to those lost souls who reply with incredibly rude and hostile messages to my important, informational posts: What the hell is wrong with you?! Seriously. You should be actively helping me spread these messages and add your own experiences -- not call for the silencing of one of the few remaining voices of reason in this dystopian nightmare. How can you call it "spam" when I'm not selling anything, not linking anywhere, and everything is true since I experienced it myself? Do you even read the content at all? Do you even use the Internet?! Plus, Slashdot barely lets me post any messages anyway, and automatically starts them off with a score of -1, so it's a freakin' miracle that you even find them at all...

If I showed these points to somebody from the year 1999, they probably wouldn't believe me...

• * I keep hearing people say things like: "Just get a secondary Gmail/Outlook/Yahoo/whatever! It takes like 5 minutes!" But when I actually try that, for the last 10+ years, they always lock me out with the dreaded "verify with phone" screen. Yes, no matter what country/"alternate e-mail" I pick, no matter which proxy, etc. And those "SMS inbox" services are all banned. Seriously. I've tried countless of them. Paid ones. They never work anymore.
  .
• * I registered an account at Reddit and started posting. After a while, it seemed like it was eerily, suspiciously dead. I tried copying the URLs into a new browser instance (with a different set of cookies) and all of the links returned "not found" errors. I e-mailed the site owners about this and they flat-out admitted to me that my account had been silently put in a "bubble" immediately upon registration due to the IP address being owned by a VPN/proxy service. Needless to say, I immediately stopped using the site forever.
  .
• * Want to contact any random company these days? Expect an e-mail address on their site? Hah! What a joke! You will only be allowed the privilege of e-mailing them if you send all your data to Google (reCAPTCHA). And most force you to use their awful, broken form on top of that, with an absurdly low limit on the number of characters you can type. (Not that they ever read what I ask/tell them anyway...)
  .
• * On Whitepages (.com), no matter what absurd, obviously fake and impossible names you enter, it will always say: "We found Slasdotexamplefakename on Whitepages Premium", in an attempt to trick you into paying them money because the "person" you were looking for supposedly exists behind their paywall. This scam is somehow allowed to keep operating, just like countless other major/semi-governmental sites which get away with absolutely anything. I've pointed this "bug" out to the owners multiple times but they of course just ignore my e-mails.
  .
• * My ancient Hotmail e-mail account, created in the late 1990s and mostly kept around for nostalgic reasons, has not allowed me to log into it for ages. It's frozen at the "verify with phone" screen, which is impossible to get past. The account was like 15 years old when they suddenly decided they need to "verify" it "for my protection", forever locking me out from it.
  .

If you're going to reply with "it works for me! You're doing it wrong...", then please understand that they don't harass people who they already have fully tracked. For example, if you use malicious spyware such as Google's Chrome "browser", or use your residential/"real" IP address, all is already lost from the beginning.

PS: Sadly, all of the decentralized/P2P/serverless projects which would in theory fix many of these issues (ZeroNet, Dat Project, GNUnet, SAFE Network, Freenet, IPFS, etc.) never seem to go anywhere or even get released. They all seem to be run by hopeless dreamers. If you know of some really exciting, emerging technology related to this, please let me know.

My actual experiences with today's Internet:

• * I tried numerous times to create an account on Plenty of Fish (dating site). Every single time, no matter what information I inputted into the registration form, it would give fake error messages about how the "username is already taken" (even when trying impossible, ridiculous ones full of random alphanumeric characters).
  .
• * There's constant buffering, stuttering and freezing for video streaming, and oftentimes even for Internet radio. No matter which site. Words cannot describe how frustrating it is to have 100/100 Mb/s fiber which can never actually be utilized because everything has to go through these sluggish, shady, crappy VPNs and proxies. (And even then, they don't actually give any real privacy or security...)
  .
• * Everything is an "app" these days. Even when you go to the website of something, it's often only there to serve as a way for people who carry around surveillance devices (called "mobile phones", "mobiles" or "phones" in newspeak) to click (sorry -- tap) on special links which open up their centralized "app stores" and download the malware/spyware for them, which then have unfettered access to their entire system. No "website interface" is available to use with a "real" computer.
  .
• * I keep getting locked out of accounts when companies start using Google's reCAPTCHA even for logging in. All attempts to contact the companies in question in order for them to have my account "whitelisted" from having to jump through these hoops have been unsuccessful. Google must track every single mouse click, and blocking it means you can't even attempt to get past their harassments...
  .
• * I asked a series of questions on a GitHub project's "issues" section (prior to Microsoft buying it) and noticed that they were suddenly gone on all computers except my own, I was suddenly logged out, and I was unable to log in again with what I now realize was a fake error message. After weeks of experimenting, it eventually dawned upon me that a GitHub employee was the maintainer of the project/repository in question, and that he kept using some secret feature which underhandedly "stealth bans" anyone he didn't like. (I was not even being rude.)
  .
• * I was told to use Telegram, so I went to their site, surprisingly found an actual desktop application, downloaded and ran it... only to be immediately told to "enter my phone number". No "dismiss" or "skip" button. Next course of action? Uninstall.
  .
• * When logging into GitHub one day (2019), after discovering that my issues all returned "404 Not found" errors, and after being forced to enter a code sent via e-mail: "Your account has been flagged. Because of that, your profile is hidden from the public." When you see that message, nobody will ever hear or see you on that site ever again...
  .
• * Need an alternate e-mail account in 2019? You fool! I went through literally every single obscure "free e-mail" service known to man, and they all lock me out with "verify with phone" screens now, or don't allow new registrations whatsoever. Or show perpetual CAPTCHAs. Or give fake error messages. The only exception was Tutanota, but they have also started putting all new accounts into "quarantine" for 48 hours, after which they are (allegedly) manually verified. (I believe it's actually just an automatic timer.) Once you have created the account, they let you know that you can't receive or send any e-mails until they have done this check. And of course they don't allow IMAP for free accounts, and go out of their way to make it really, really difficult for even a computer hacker to automate the login process to even check whether there are any new e-mails (not even talking about the contents)...
  .
• * freenode (the IRC chat network) has in recent years banned every single "throwaway" e-mail service known to man (likely using some sort of service which keeps track of every new domain that pops up). The sneaky part is that it sometimes lets you create the account, without displaying the usual pre-registration "This e-mail service is not allowed." error message, but then it immediately (literally less than a couple of seconds) "drops" the account after registering, giving a different (but identical in meaning) message about how the e-mail service is not allowed. I've literally tried every single service at this point and it's just not possible to register an account at freenode anymore. (They claim it's to stop abuse from bots, but they also stop any legitimate human being.)
  .
• * My ancient Hotmail e-mail account, created in the late 1990s and mostly kept around for nostalgic reasons, has not allowed me to log into it for ages. It's frozen at the "verify with phone" screen, which is impossible to get past. The account was like 15 years old when they suddenly decided they need to "verify" it "for my protection", forever locking me out from it.
  .
• * Half the time, those Google reCAPTCHA puzzles never end. They just keep showing more and more new stupid "puzzles" for me to sit there like a monkey and click, click and click until the end of time or I eventually give up, kill the tab and forget about doing any of the basic tasks that no longer can be done in the dystopian surveillance nightmare that the Internet has turned into.
  .
• * The local auction site was bought by eBay a few years ago. I then tried to sell an item using my account created in 2003... only to be spat in the face with yet another "upload government photo ID to continue" message -- after I had spent hours upon hours creating and perfecting the description, photos, etc. For an account that was 10+ years old. With nothing but positive feedback on every transaction. I immediately ceased using it forever.
  .

The above are just a handful of the horrible experiences which I, and without a doubt countless other people, are being put through on a daily basis.

PS: Sadly, all of the decentralized/P2P/serverless projects which would in theory fix many of these issues (ZeroNet, Dat Project, GNUnet, SAFE Network, Freenet, IPFS, etc.) never seem to go anywhere or even get released. They all seem to be run by hopeless dreamers. If you know of some really exciting, emerging technology related to this, please let me know.

This is what happens when I try to use the modern Internet:

• * There's constant buffering, stuttering and freezing for video streaming, and oftentimes even for Internet radio. No matter which site. Words cannot describe how frustrating it is to have 100/100 Mb/s fiber which can never actually be utilized because everything has to go through these sluggish, shady, crappy VPNs and proxies. (And even then, they don't actually give any real privacy or security...)
  .
• * Want to contact any random company these days? Expect an e-mail address on their site? Hah! What a joke! You will only be allowed the privilege of e-mailing them if you send all your data to Google (reCAPTCHA). And most force you to use their awful, broken form on top of that, with an absurdly low limit on the number of characters you can type. (Not that they ever read what I ask/tell them anyway...)
  .
• * There are only two web browsers left: Chrome and Firefox. (All the other ones are just "skins".) The latter has virtually no marketshare, yet is almost as bad as the former. Both ship with keyloggers enabled by default, not mentioned to the user in any way, which immediately send every single keystroke you input into either the address or search bars (part of the UI) to evil corporations to store, analyze and use against you perpetually. Anything you paste accidentally into the same fields also flies straight to Google/Mozilla/"partners". Never use those bars as "scratch pads". And this is just the tip of the iceberg; there isn't enough room here to go into details about all the other gross privacy violations that they do by default, without your knowledge or consent...
  .
• * On Whitepages (.com), no matter what absurd, obviously fake and impossible names you enter, it will always say: "We found Slasdotexamplefakename on Whitepages Premium", in an attempt to trick you into paying them money because the "person" you were looking for supposedly exists behind their paywall. This scam is somehow allowed to keep operating, just like countless other major/semi-governmental sites which get away with absolutely anything. I've pointed this "bug" out to the owners multiple times but they of course just ignore my e-mails.
  .
• * I tried numerous times to create an account on Plenty of Fish (dating site). Every single time, no matter what information I inputted into the registration form, it would give fake error messages about how the "username is already taken" (even when trying impossible, ridiculous ones full of random alphanumeric characters).
  .

Seriously. Something really major has to happen now to crush these scumbags once and for all.

PS: Sadly, all of the decentralized/P2P/serverless projects which would in theory fix many of these issues (ZeroNet, Dat Project, GNUnet, SAFE Network, Freenet, IPFS, etc.) never seem to go anywhere or even get released. They all seem to be run by hopeless dreamers. If you know of some really exciting, emerging technology related to this, please let me know.

This is what happens when I try to use the modern Internet:

• * If you use Tor, just forget about doing anything whatsoever (outside of .onion sites). Even paid VPNs and proxies are seen as a cancer to exterminate by site owners.
  .
• * On Whitepages (.com), no matter what absurd, obviously fake and impossible names you enter, it will always say: "We found Slasdotexamplefakename on Whitepages Premium", in an attempt to trick you into paying them money because the "person" you were looking for supposedly exists behind their paywall. This scam is somehow allowed to keep operating, just like countless other major/semi-governmental sites which get away with absolutely anything. I've pointed this "bug" out to the owners multiple times but they of course just ignore my e-mails.
  .
• * freenode (the IRC chat network) has in recent years banned every single "throwaway" e-mail service known to man (likely using some sort of service which keeps track of every new domain that pops up). The sneaky part is that it sometimes lets you create the account, without displaying the usual pre-registration "This e-mail service is not allowed." error message, but then it immediately (literally less than a couple of seconds) "drops" the account after registering, giving a different (but identical in meaning) message about how the e-mail service is not allowed. I've literally tried every single service at this point and it's just not possible to register an account at freenode anymore. (They claim it's to stop abuse from bots, but they also stop any legitimate human being.)
  .
• * A couple of years ago, I needed a basic website for my software project. Not just every single server host, but even "webhost" (called "web hotel" in some languages) demanded that I sent a scanned copy of my (nonexistent) government-issued photo ID and Visa debit card for the privilege of getting to pay them money. None of them of course mention this prior to wasting my time and energy filling out their endless forms...
  .
• * My ancient Hotmail e-mail account, created in the late 1990s and mostly kept around for nostalgic reasons, has not allowed me to log into it for ages. It's frozen at the "verify with phone" screen, which is impossible to get past. The account was like 15 years old when they suddenly decided they need to "verify" it "for my protection", forever locking me out from it.
  .
• * I once (in recent years) actually managed to successfully create a Facebook account, with a lot of trickery and swearing. In no time, they locked me out, forcing me to upload a face photo "for my protection". I naturally sent them a fake photo and that's the last time I ever saw that account.
  .
• * Ever tried to ask any programming question on Stack Overflow/Exchange/whatever? Even if you type it perfectly, they will quickly vote it down out of spite, put it "on hold" (that's their newspeak term for "censoring it away"), not even read your question at all before "helping" (because they are only looking to increase their "reputation score" and have zero interest in actually helping), and then delete (or even modify) your own responses, while keeping the troll comments. And that's if you're lucky; normally, your question will be completely ignored.
  .

The above are just a handful of the horrible experiences which I, and without a doubt countless other people, are being put through on a daily basis.

PS: Have you noticed that whenever somebody claims that there is "plenty of" something, typically referring to a kind of software or service, there is not a single active/usable one in reality?

This is dead-seriously my experience with the modern Internet as of 2019:

• * I needed to buy some Bitcoin. Every single centralized exchange now requires "photo ID", in some cases attempting to make me take a photo of myself standing with my photo ID (which I don't even have, and won't be getting) in front of my face in the mirror... Naturally, this was never said up-front -- only after registering and (in some cases) sending them crypto coins, which they proceeded to keep perpetually "for my protection" (in other words, they stole it)...
  .
• * The local auction site was bought by eBay a few years ago. I then tried to sell an item using my account created in 2003... only to be spat in the face with yet another "upload government photo ID to continue" message -- after I had spent hours upon hours creating and perfecting the description, photos, etc. For an account that was 10+ years old. With nothing but positive feedback on every transaction. I immediately ceased using it forever.
  .
• * To my horror, I discovered one day in 2019 that "anonymous" posting has been disabled on Slashdot. Registering an account involves a massive form of information, e-mail verification with an annoying forced "password reset", and of course a Google reCANCER blob. In other words, it's no longer possible to comment on articles. It was the last place where I could in any way make my little voice heard to a couple of other people.
  .
• * Need an alternate e-mail account in 2019? You fool! I went through literally every single obscure "free e-mail" service known to man, and they all lock me out with "verify with phone" screens now, or don't allow new registrations whatsoever. Or show perpetual CAPTCHAs. Or give fake error messages. The only exception was Tutanota, but they have also started putting all new accounts into "quarantine" for 48 hours, after which they are (allegedly) manually verified. (I believe it's actually just an automatic timer.) Once you have created the account, they let you know that you can't receive or send any e-mails until they have done this check. And of course they don't allow IMAP for free accounts, and go out of their way to make it really, really difficult for even a computer hacker to automate the login process to even check whether there are any new e-mails (not even talking about the contents)...
  .
• * If you use Tor, just forget about doing anything whatsoever (outside of .onion sites). Even paid VPNs and proxies are seen as a cancer to exterminate by site owners.
  .
• * When logging into GitHub one day (2019), after discovering that my issues all returned "404 Not found" errors, and after being forced to enter a code sent via e-mail: "Your account has been flagged. Because of that, your profile is hidden from the public." When you see that message, nobody will ever hear or see you on that site ever again...
  .
• * I've long since lost count of the number of times when a registration form has claimed that "an e-mail containing a verification link has been sent" but I never actually received any e-mail. (No, it's not "in the spam folder"...)
  .
• * I registered an account at Reddit and started posting. After a while, it seemed like it was eerily, suspiciously dead. I tried copying the URLs into a new browser instance (with a different set of cookies) and all of the links returned "not found" errors. I e-mailed the site owners about this and they flat-out admitted to me that my account had been silently put in a "bubble" immediately upon registration due to the IP address being owned by a VPN/proxy service. Needless to say, I immediately stopped using the site forever.
  .
• * I created an account at Mixer (video streaming, hoping that it would suck less than Twitch). Much to my initial surprise, it actually did let me register, and even sent the activation e-mail whose link I followed. However, when trying to log in to the "created" account, it then lets you know that "This e-mail address isn't allowed". Not another word. Just that. As if it were the registration form.
  .
• * Everything is an "app" these days. Even when you go to the website of something, it's often only there to serve as a way for people who carry around surveillance devices (called "mobile phones", "mobiles" or "phones" in newspeak) to click (sorry -- tap) on special links which open up their centralized "app stores" and download the malware/spyware for them, which then have unfettered access to their entire system. No "website interface" is available to use with a "real" computer.
  .
• * There's constant buffering, stuttering and freezing for video streaming, and oftentimes even for Internet radio. No matter which site. Words cannot describe how frustrating it is to have 100/100 Mb/s fiber which can never actually be utilized because everything has to go through these sluggish, shady, crappy VPNs and proxies. (And even then, they don't actually give any real privacy or security...)
  .
• * Half the time, those Google reCAPTCHA puzzles never end. They just keep showing more and more new stupid "puzzles" for me to sit there like a monkey and click, click and click until the end of time or I eventually give up, kill the tab and forget about doing any of the basic tasks that no longer can be done in the dystopian surveillance nightmare that the Internet has turned into.
  .

My conclusion: privacy is no longer "a thing" in the minds of the average person.

PS: Have you noticed that whenever somebody claims that there is "plenty of" something, typically referring to a kind of software or service, there is not a single active/usable one in reality?

A normal day for me on the Internet of 2019:

• * There are only two web browsers left: Chrome and Firefox. (All the other ones are just "skins".) The latter has virtually no marketshare, yet is almost as bad as the former. Both ship with keyloggers enabled by default, not mentioned to the user in any way, which immediately send every single keystroke you input into either the address or search bars (part of the UI) to evil corporations to store, analyze and use against you perpetually. Anything you paste accidentally into the same fields also flies straight to Google/Mozilla/"partners". Never use those bars as "scratch pads". And this is just the tip of the iceberg; there isn't enough room here to go into details about all the other gross privacy violations that they do by default, without your knowledge or consent...
  .
• * PayPal are literally thieves. I had a very old account, with "Premium" (I believe that's what they called it) status even, which they one day locked me out of. No explanation. No responses whatsoever to my questions about what they were doing or why. Total, utter silence. They kept all of the money in the account and I could never again use it in any way. (To add insult to injury, they have kept sending me regular automated spam e-mails ever since.) Years later, when I tried to buy some software which happened to use PayPal as their card payment processor (that is, not their normal accounts), I was denied by their system because they had permanently banned my Visa card as well from ever making any transactions through their system...
  .
• * I tried numerous times to create an account on Plenty of Fish (dating site). Every single time, no matter what information I inputted into the registration form, it would give fake error messages about how the "username is already taken" (even when trying impossible, ridiculous ones full of random alphanumeric characters).
  .
• * I registered an account at Reddit and started posting. After a while, it seemed like it was eerily, suspiciously dead. I tried copying the URLs into a new browser instance (with a different set of cookies) and all of the links returned "not found" errors. I e-mailed the site owners about this and they flat-out admitted to me that my account had been silently put in a "bubble" immediately upon registration due to the IP address being owned by a VPN/proxy service. Needless to say, I immediately stopped using the site forever.
  .
• * To my horror, I discovered one day in 2019 that "anonymous" posting has been disabled on Slashdot. Registering an account involves a massive form of information, e-mail verification with an annoying forced "password reset", and of course a Google reCANCER blob. In other words, it's no longer possible to comment on articles. It was the last place where I could in any way make my little voice heard to a couple of other people.
  .
• * The local auction site was bought by eBay a few years ago. I then tried to sell an item using my account created in 2003... only to be spat in the face with yet another "upload government photo ID to continue" message -- after I had spent hours upon hours creating and perfecting the description, photos, etc. For an account that was 10+ years old. With nothing but positive feedback on every transaction. I immediately ceased using it forever.
  .
• * freenode (the IRC chat network) has in recent years banned every single "throwaway" e-mail service known to man (likely using some sort of service which keeps track of every new domain that pops up). The sneaky part is that it sometimes lets you create the account, without displaying the usual pre-registration "This e-mail service is not allowed." error message, but then it immediately (literally less than a couple of seconds) "drops" the account after registering, giving a different (but identical in meaning) message about how the e-mail service is not allowed. I've literally tried every single service at this point and it's just not possible to register an account at freenode anymore. (They claim it's to stop abuse from bots, but they also stop any legitimate human being.)
  .
• * I asked a series of questions on a GitHub project's "issues" section (prior to Microsoft buying it) and noticed that they were suddenly gone on all computers except my own, I was suddenly logged out, and I was unable to log in again with what I now realize was a fake error message. After weeks of experimenting, it eventually dawned upon me that a GitHub employee was the maintainer of the project/repository in question, and that he kept using some secret feature which underhandedly "stealth bans" anyone he didn't like. (I was not even being rude.)
  .

The above are just a handful of the horrible experiences which I, and without a doubt countless other people, are being put through on a daily basis.

PS: Have you noticed that whenever somebody claims that there is "plenty of" something, typically a software or service, there is not a single one in reality?

My actual experiences with today's Internet:

• * Want to contact any random company these days? Expect an e-mail address on their site? Hah! What a joke! You will only be allowed the privilege of e-mailing them if you send all your data to Google (reCAPTCHA). And most force you to use their awful, broken form on top of that, with an absurdly low limit on the number of characters you can type. (Not that they ever read what I ask/tell them anyway...)
  .
• * There are only two web browsers left: Chrome and Firefox. (All the other ones are just "skins".) The latter has virtually no marketshare, yet is almost as bad as the former. Both ship with keyloggers enabled by default, not mentioned to the user in any way, which immediately send every single keystroke you input into either the address or search bars (part of the UI) to evil corporations to store, analyze and use against you perpetually. Anything you paste accidentally into the same fields also flies straight to Google/Mozilla/"partners". Never use those bars as "scratch pads". And this is just the tip of the iceberg; there isn't enough room here to go into details about all the other gross privacy violations that they do by default, without your knowledge or consent...
  .
• * Recently, after Microsoft had bought GitHub, I tried to log in to an account of mine in order to reply to a reply on an issue thread. I was only mildly shocked to learn that they had locked me out with a message about having sent a "verification code" to the throwaway e-mail address I used when registering, obviously long since abandoned and inaccessible. Apparently, having the right password is no longer enough to prove that you control an account. (I could never get back into it, resulting in a dead end for the issue.)
  .
• * I've long since lost count of the number of times when a registration form has claimed that "an e-mail containing a verification link has been sent" but I never actually received any e-mail. (No, it's not "in the spam folder"...)
  .
• * I created an account at Mixer (video streaming, hoping that it would suck less than Twitch). Much to my initial surprise, it actually did let me register, and even sent the activation e-mail whose link I followed. However, when trying to log in to the "created" account, it then lets you know that "This e-mail address isn't allowed". Not another word. Just that. As if it were the registration form.
  .
• * Did you know that there is an increasing number of people livestreaming their front porch 24/7 or workplace on Twitch and other similar sites for anyone to watch and record? I don't doubt for a second that it's legal, since evil, mentally ill psychopaths are in charge of the law, but they definitely don't have my permission to video/audio record me walking by their house, buying something in their store, etc.
  .
• * I needed to buy some Bitcoin. Every single centralized exchange now requires "photo ID", in some cases attempting to make me take a photo of myself standing with my photo ID (which I don't even have, and won't be getting) in front of my face in the mirror... Naturally, this was never said up-front -- only after registering and (in some cases) sending them crypto coins, which they proceeded to keep perpetually "for my protection" (in other words, they stole it)...
  .
• * Need an alternate e-mail account in 2019? You fool! I went through literally every single obscure "free e-mail" service known to man, and they all lock me out with "verify with phone" screens now, or don't allow new registrations whatsoever. Or show perpetual CAPTCHAs. Or give fake error messages. The only exception was Tutanota, but they have also started putting all new accounts into "quarantine" for 48 hours, after which they are (allegedly) manually verified. (I believe it's actually just an automatic timer.) Once you have created the account, they let you know that you can't receive or send any e-mails until they have done this check. And of course they don't allow IMAP for free accounts, and go out of their way to make it really, really difficult for even a computer hacker to automate the login process to even check whether there are any new e-mails (not even talking about the contents)...
  .

Seriously. Something really major has to happen now to crush these scumbags once and for all.

PS: Have you noticed that whenever somebody claims that there is "plenty of" something, typically a software or service, there is not a single one in reality?

This is what happens when I try to use the modern Internet:

• * I had finally found one single source on the known Internet providing a certain bit of data, and set up my cURL bot to fetch it daily. It was not long before the requests started failing. Looking into it, I realized that they had just switched to the dreaded CloudFlare "Cybermafia Protection Services", meaning both my normal browser (Firefox) and my bots were presented with this "anti-bot" screen which obviously stops the cURL bot, but also I, as a human, with a full-fledged, JavaScript-enabled browser, still had to play their tiresome, endless "monkey-solve-puzzle" game where I'm forced to help Satan/Google train their spy AI, collecting data about me with every single pixel my cursor moves.
  .
• * I created an account at Mixer (video streaming, hoping that it would suck less than Twitch). Much to my initial surprise, it actually did let me register, and even sent the activation e-mail whose link I followed. However, when trying to log in to the "created" account, it then lets you know that "This e-mail address isn't allowed". Not another word. Just that. As if it were the registration form.
  .
• * To my horror, I discovered one day in 2019 that "anonymous" posting has been disabled on Slashdot. Registering an account involves a massive form of information, e-mail verification with an annoying forced "password reset", and of course a Google reCANCER blob. In other words, it's no longer possible to comment on articles. It was the last place where I could in any way make my little voice heard to a couple of other people.
  .
• * Everything is an "app" these days. Even when you go to the website of something, it's often only there to serve as a way for people who carry around surveillance devices (called "mobile phones" or "phones" in newspeak) to click (sorry -- tap) on special links which open up their centralized "app stores" and download the malware/spyware for them, which then have unfettered access to their entire system. No "website interface" is available to use with a "real" computer.
  .
• * I was told to use Telegram, so I went to their site, surprisingly found an actual desktop application, downloaded and ran it... only to be immediately told to "enter my phone number". No "dismiss" or "skip" button. Next course of action? Uninstall.
  .
• * I asked a series of questions on a GitHub project's "issues" section (prior to Microsoft buying it) and noticed that they were suddenly gone on all computers except my own, I was suddenly logged out, and I was unable to log in again with what I now realize was a fake error message. After weeks of experimenting, it eventually dawned upon me that a GitHub employee was the maintainer of the project/repository in question, and that he kept using some secret feature which underhandedly "stealth bans" anyone he didn't like. (I was not even being rude.)
  .
• * I live in an alleged "First World" country. Every time I attempt to purchase an item from any other country, the Visa debit (not even credit) card payment is blocked with a random vague message such as "The transaction has been declined". I then have to manually log in to my bank's website, with the dongle, navigate through a maze of links (they actively block any attempt to bookmark any specific page), find an obscure feature called "allow insecure Internet payments for 60 minutes", click a bunch of times, and finally repeat the order. Now it appears to go through, but always displays an intermediate Visa page ("3-D Secure") where I'm forced to enter all kinds of numbers into my dongle and Internet bank. It varies slightly each time how exactly this is done. Then the order finally goes through. I get the normal "Thanks for your purchase!" confirmation e-mails, etc. However, after a little while, I get a new e-mail saying that "further verification is required" for the order to actually go through, and if I don't send a scanned photo ID within X days, the order will be automatically canceled...
  .
• * Need an alternate e-mail account in 2019? You fool! I went through literally every single obscure "free e-mail" service known to man, and they all lock me out with "verify with phone" screens now, or don't allow new registrations whatsoever. Or show perpetual CAPTCHAs. Or give fake error messages. The only exception was Tutanota, but they have also started putting all new accounts into "quarantine" for 48 hours, after which they are (allegedly) manually verified. (I believe it's actually just an automatic timer.) Once you have created the account, they let you know that you can't receive or send any e-mails until they have done this check. And of course they don't allow IMAP for free accounts, and go out of their way to make it really, really difficult for even a computer hacker to automate the login process to even check whether there are any new e-mails (not even talking about the contents)...
  .

The above are just a handful of the horrible experiences which I, and without a doubt countless other people, are being put through on a daily basis.

PS: Sadly, all of the decentralized/P2P/serverless projects which would in theory fix many of these issues (ZeroNet, Dat Project, GNUnet, SAFE Network, Freenet, IPFS, etc.) never seem to go anywhere or even get released. They all seem to be run by hopeless dreamers. If you know of some really exciting, emerging technology related to this, please let me know.