A net made of chains

I spent several years pooping on VPNs and telling my friends that they are really useless. Something else is needed to make the internet a better experience. These days I decided to try a VPN and my opinion didn’t change.

 

Why do people use VPNs?

Why do they spend money every month, thinking that VPNs put a band-aid over their bad use of the internet?

Why don’t they instead change their DNS to something more private, maybe with SSL?

Why, if they want more privacy, don’t they let go of Chrome or Opera and switch to better, more privacy-respecting browsers?

Why do they complain about Windows 11 but never take the first step towards new operating system, hoping instead that by some miracle their computer suddenly stops stabbing them in the back with every new terrible update, planned obsolescence and unwanted features that keep becoming worse and worse?

Why do people use social networks so happily if they know their personal data gets sold and used unethically?

 

Sometimes I get told that the internet is dead.

Sometimes I get told that social networks killed it.

Sometimes I get told “I have nothing to hide”, justifying big corporations that sell personal data as if it was some farm animal ready to be slaughtered.

 

Internet suffers every time you support a corporation that profits upon your engagement.

Internet suffers when you consume brainrot content, scrolling through infinite social network feeds.

Internet suffers every time you buy a product just because an influencer got a sponsorship and convinced you that the product you just bought is the solution for every problem.

Internet suffers when you use the corpse of a once good operating system that now gets worse every day because Microsoft knows it has a monopoly and society doesn’t want to move on to better operating systems.

In reality, Internet already suffered because of Internet Explorer, but compared to its current issues, it was just a scratch.

 

I am ready to build a new, better internet where the VPNs are not this palliative cure that pretends to fix a broken net.

The world is not. The world chose comfortable but terrible social networks.

The world chose to remain passive while the internet’s enshittification gets rampant.

 

Because now the net is made of chains.

And it seems that people like being chained down.

Almost no one tries to escape those chains, and indie web spaces like personal websites and blogs are rarer and rarer.

And to be more comfortable in those chains, VPNs really are a band-aid to soothe some of the pain caused by their invisible bruises.