I’ve seen countless occurrences of Google Tag Manager being routinely used for all kinds of things that aren’t “advertising cookies”. There really is no need for the snark.
It is in the same league as advertising cookies. If I visit a website, I want to read or interact with that website, not with Google. Trying to shove Google into my face will meet the same reaction as trying to shove ads in my face. Getting blocked.
> You will have a hard time browsing the web, including this site ;)
No, HN works even js disabled.
I did this experiment a while ago, blocking google in my hosts file. Usually fonts break (arrows, icons), and javascript breaks (reddit and stackoverflow need google ajax jquery to uncollapse collapsed messages).
But in general most of the web is usable.
In theory it should be possible to host fonts and jquery locally, but I wasn't able to manage that.
Content blocking is not an all-or-nothing process. Popular blocklists have different flavors depending on whether you value privacy (blocking almost everything Google, etc.) or usability (blocking ads, telemetry, third-parties) but allowing everything else.
It is really not very complicated. It is actually very simple. When I visit a new website, I check what it requests using uBlock Origin. Then just block those unwanted stuff.
If the website does not work without something like Google fonts or tag manager or whatever other bloat, it means, that it is shoddy-made, by an either uninformed or ignorant entity. It probably is illegal according to EU law as well, since I never gave consent to being tracked by third parties. I do not use that website. Browser tab closed.
In the cases, in which an external entity forces me to use crap websites, I isolate them in browser profiles and/or container tabs.
In cases, in which the content is only available on that website, I can try reader mode. Or try to find some other frontend, like Invidious for YouTube.
So in most cases I can do something to reduce the toxicity of the cocktail, that modern web development practices have cooked up for me.
Websites load faster. I filter out BS websites with low information density. I avoid ads and being tracked by random companies that I don't trust. I feel more comfortable visiting websites knowing, that my personal data does not automatically flow to random companies. I don't have to sit through YouTube ads either. I get what I came for, then I leave. To me this is a great benefit.
But lets not forget, that we are all part of a human society. Almost no ones, if anyone's behavior has no effect on others. By using the Internet like I do, I am also acting in a responsible way regarding my effect on society. We need more people resisting big tech surveillance and daily violation of privacy. I hope some day more of us can look beyond immediate personal benefit.
> "I hope some day more of us can look beyond immediate personal benefit."
Look, I'm ok if you want to be individualistic and say "screw the creators, content producers, journalists, and everyone else I'm freeloading their work for MY personal benefit". It's immoral in my book, but it's certainly not illegal.
But at least be honest with yourself, and stop pretending you're doing this for the greater good of human society.
You can try to frame it in whatever way you want, but that does not change the fact, that you have zero idea, whether or how much I support creators that I like. It would do you good to not just assume things on the basis of someone's browsing and ad blocking habits.
That's reasonable. So, out of all the content you consume, for what percentage of it do you contribute to the content's author/creator/company? How much value per year?
I do the opposite. I block everything, and if a new site I’m curious on doesn’t work, I’ll look at what’s needed to let it work. Your method would potentially require some cleaning up since things were allowed to initially run. If the site requires things I don’t like, I just close the tab and move on.
I block it too. However, it is only what it says on the tin: a tag manager. IOW it's a convenient place to hold all those useful snippets[1] of javaScript in one place. Most companies want that place to be google because it's seen as bulletproof.
[1] And yeah most of those useful snippets are for tracking, but actually several privacy solutions like cookie management platforms can be held inside a tag manager as well. To me it's still worth it because if I block those CMPs along with GTM it means no banner and no agreeing to any tracking.
Indeed, you can use that for a plethora of things besides the advertising.
Also many websites are using Google Analytics as base tool for reporting and monitoring activities
