Comment by steelframe
3 days ago
I like to ride my bicycle with my friends in rides organized by the (Pacific Northwest) Cascade Bicycle Club. They require that I solve a Google reCAPTCHA in order to register for a ride. Google is already completely locking me out from being able to do that. When I try to click on the squares to select whatever items it's asking, it indefinitely loops. When I try using the audio version, it completely blocks me from using it saying that there has been suspicious activity.
That means that I ride alone these days. I did not renew my membership this year.
The last time I experienced something like this was when Facebook starting being the only way to participate in certain events. Back when that happened, I simply counted myself as excluded and did other things with my time and money.
I also had a similar issue with Cascade Bicycle Club - they chose to organize things via WhatsApp, and since I am (inexplicably) banned from opening a Meta account I was completely left out of the group and missed out on many rides/details that were only shared via WhatsApp.
When I tell people that this is even possible I get wide-eyed stares — as if they never contemplated that Meta could exercise their right to ban someone from the platform.
It's a huge problem and I have no idea how to fix it except talk about it and spread awareness. And I am not remotely interested in trying to work around the ban.
You bring up a good point. There is a general lack of awareness of how much power we're giving these monopolists. As a kid, in school I was thought to be weary of drugs, STDs, pimps and other threats. This should be added to the list. Yhis is a clear cut case where governments should start educating the people about this.
I hope you contacted them to explain why. People usually think I’m a nut when I do it, or are too stupid to understand and think it’s a tech support issue, but it’s worth at least trying to make it clear that you are choosing not to use/do/pay something because of their choice to use recaptcha
+1 to this. I had a long conversation with a local shop that went to only ordering online or through an enslaved ipad on a pedestal at the entrance. I explained to them that I wasn't going to use their app or web page online and the iPad at the door has people trying to figure it out so orders take longer, and the combination means I just won't eat there any more.
I also stop going to these places, and also not out of any deep principle, it just isn't something I want to waste my life doing, I'll go somewhere i can just ask for what i want to order.
Why not just 2captcha it and go on with your life?
The old, open web is too easy to attack and that is part of what has led sites to adopt technologies like this. I hope there are better solutions than everyone-is-their-GoogleID, but how realistic is it that people just trying to run a bakery, a bicycle ride, &c, will find them? They have other things to do.