It was roughly at that point I felt captchas became highly objectionable, especially when combined with site you were forced to use at work.

Why should Google profit from the work of the general public in this way? All of the knowledge learned from implementing Captchas should be made entirely public. I would hope it already is! But boy does that feel naive in this world.

> The following methods can be used to acquire residential IP addresses for a residential proxy network:

> Software development kit (SDK) partnerships: Proxy services convince mobile application developers to include their SDK in applications in exchange for payment for each person who downloads the application. Individuals download the application and accept the terms and conditions, allowing the SDKs to run in the background and route proxy traffic through users' devices.

> Virtual private network (VPNs) with hidden terms of service: Free VPN services may enroll users' devices in a residential proxy network, without obtaining their consent. The details are often hidden in the terms of service, which most users do not read prior to download, or the language is difficult for the user to understand.

> [malware and compromised IoT devices]

> Passive income schemes: Proxy services convince people to download applications on their device that promise to pay them for their internet bandwidth. People often do not realize that criminals use their internet connection to commit cyber attacks

One reddit post says bandwidth sharing passive income schemes paid them $1 to $9 per month.

I believe the cheap Chinese pirate TV boxes that are somewhat popular in the US these days are also in botnets, which is likely how the vendors make them so cheap.

And that's assuming they're nice enough to ask at all.

Their announcement is full of buzzwords about "agentic" things. Detecting LLMs is one thing, but imagine the power of being able to pick which LLM browsers are permitted and which aren't!

I think Google is being too early to the party with this. Cloudflare still has CAPTCHAs to throw at the wall. There are ways other than attestation to verify that someone is a real human, but they're getting more and more annoying to real users and harder and harder to implement on a small website.

Despite the massive implications, this is a simple system that just works for the 99% of people who use Chrome or Safari or at least have access to an Android phone or iPhone somewhere. It's quick, doesn't require installing apps or creating accounts, and it just works from both the website perspective and the user perspective.

Of course when you start thinking about people with disabilities things become problematic, but when have tech companies ever really cared about that sort of thing? Inclusiveness was fun and all for a while, but the clowns the American people elected banned that sort of thing for any company considering government contracts, and big tech licked that boot like it was made of honey.

The world becomes a lot easier if you just decide to ignore all edge cases and assume customers who disagree with you didn't matter anyway. And infuriating as it may be, for companies like Google, that business model works.