ruination

Wait, how does Google make money off of paywalled contents?

My general approach to this tends to be to identify what makes me happy in life, splurge on those, save on everything else. For example, I love computers, so I'd splurge on parts, but religiously meal prep to save on food.

Install cameras in their bedroom that streams to YouTube or Twitch 24/7. See if they really have nothing to hide.

It doesn't make sense too, like it's bad enough even if just one died.

Say it louder for the people at the back: adblock is a basic cybersecurity measurs

Even ignoring the surveillance aspect of ads, which I could go on a massive rant about, Google and other ad platforms themselves doesn't seem to care about harming people with malvertising and scam ads. Why should I care about their revenue?

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.