I'm posting this in ~society rather than ~tech, as I feel like it's more a question of societal change and policy decisions rather than tech change. Please feel free to move if I'm wrong.

Seeing the predictable Discord data breach for age verification, it feels like the walls are closing in. My country has announced a similar policy to the UK just recently and I feel a sense of loss for a crucial part of my life that may go away.

I don't think I'm being too nostalgic by saying that I felt much more comfortable speaking freely on the internet when anonymity was the default. I didn't engage in any illegal activity - or even in my view immoral activity. I just made friends from around the world and learned a lot.

I am not making the argument that the internet of the 90's and 00's were 'safer' - I'm sure there is plenty of bad things that happened without me being aware. But this theoretical bad stuff is still being used to make us mandatorily give our government issued identity documents to corporate entities, and it's not paranoia to think they want to find a way to profit from this, and not invest heavily to defend it.

I get the structural forces that are driving this change, but it still makes me sad. I feel like I'm running a defensive cyber operation with no training or expertise. I do my best to stay private with VPNs, tracker blocking, DNS filters, but I feel like I'm losing. We have a whole department for this at work and they are very busy - I am just a lay person doing their best.

No matter what I do, either the governments of the world or surveillance capitalists will build up a picture of who I am far beyond what I am comfortable with. My meagre efforts are like trying to stop the tide by kicking it.

Do others who grew up with a more open, more anonymous internet feel similarly? Do you try and protect your privacy, are you resigned, or are you somewhere in the middle?