VPNs haven't been useful since 2002

[l0st]

It's akin to the development of "push" technologies that offer "control" to data sources in the guise of necessary 'handshaking' between systems.  Suddenly, you're experiences online are subject to "cookies" and "java scripts," and "HTML codes" you can only 'witness' and 'subject yourself' to... truncating services should you refuse.  Anyone who 'blocks' any of these things can experience crippled "functionality" like pages not loading, and apps not functioning unless you "allow" the service provider some level of control of your browsing data... and what data they can access, store, and relay.

...

This tech is not bulletproof.  It NEVER was.  (But don't tell their marketing departments that, they'll refuse to discuss it.)

Whew, tell me about it! The intentional restrictions on functionality if you do not allow the site you're accessing to run whatever they want in your browser these days are absolutely maddening. It used to be sites were designed to gracefully fallback and avoid using scripts unless absolutely necessary. Now, half the sites you go to only show you a blank page if you don't have JavaScript enabled.

Very well said.

I think the encryption built into IPv6 is intended to replace all these band-aids, but will it ever finally catch on? They've been saying for years that IPv4 exhaustion is here yet here we are 2024 and many sites still don't implement it. I'm beginning to think it may never happen.

As an aside, a few years back I tried to go full IPv6 only on my home network just for shits and giggles but I found that many networks simply weren't prepared to handle IPv6, even if it was enabled, the service levels weret typicallu much lower than for IPv4 traffic. Additionally, there were still many sites that didn't implement it at all.