ruination

Same. I'd rather they not exist, but if they must, better that it isn't under big tech's grubby palms.

Technically true, but in practice, it's very vulnerable to conglomeration of power by a few. Social media, for one: it's not exactly a matter of quality to get users to use your platform. Beyond a certain threshold of minimum quality, people use and stay on a certain platform because the people they know are on it, such that it becomes a chicken and egg problem. Other than that, Google have such a ludicrous market share of web advertising (which unfortunately remains the primary method of monetising the web) that it's very difficult to not use Google's advertising, giving them immense power to surveil and monitor people. Google Chrome, which remains the most popular browser for reasons that elude me, has so much sway over the internet that it had the courage to even propose the idea of WEI. The infrastructure on which the entite internet runs are controlled by just a handful of massive ISPs, yet another centralisation of power.

I'd imagine if, say Signal, refuses to comply and gets banned from the EU, one could always use a VPN. I think that nothing short of either a full global ban or implementing a version of The Great Wall of China would allow these ridiculous laws to be enforced. Even then, there will always be ways around it for those willing to go the extra mile.

Honestly, they could at least wait and see what happens in the UK before proposing something similar. They literally have a free guinea pig next door.

It's such a shame though, since as far as I know, the EU have had such an amazing track record. I'd expect no less from big tech, but not the EU.

I wish people who proposes laws and regulations that violates human rights with provable intent to do just that would be fined or imprisoned.

Even more reason for me to never get a car!

Are adblockers even illegal? I didn't think it was.

I know that some manufacturers ship QubesOS, those are intended for people with high threat models afaik.

I tend to think of it this way, personally: stealing is wrong, but it's more acceptable to steal when you're poor than when you're rich. Both sides are committing attrocities, but one does so to opress while the other to liberate themselves from opression. I will acknowledge that my understanding of the conflict is very limited though, so this might be oversimplified or outright incorrect.

Don't forget about malvertising, that's probably a more imminent danger. If Google and other ad companies don't give enough of a shit about user to actually filter out malware ads, why should I give enough of a shit about their revenue to not use uBO?

Time to poison their data, I guess.