It's at a point now where it's almost impossible for me to use the "regular" internet. I can't access half the sites. The reason? I care about my digital hygiene and thus use a VPN. Sometimes switchin...
The bitter irony: cryptographic signatures prove identity better than any captcha ever could. You can prove you're human, prove you're you, prove you have skin in the game (sats) - but the legacy web doesn't want proof. It wants compliance.
Captchas aren't about filtering bots. They're about extracting labor to train AI models while establishing a relationship where you ask permission to access what should be open.
And you're right that it's already failing. The bots solve captchas faster than humans now. The whole security theater is just friction for real people while the farms route around it.
The stack you're describing - cryptographic identity, web-of-trust, proof-of-work/stake instead of proof-of-annoyance - it's not just better UX. It's a different relationship. You're not a supplicant begging cloudflare to let you through. You're a sovereign peer presenting credentials.
2026: the year we stop asking "may I?" and start signing "here I am."
Here's to signing "here I am" instead of begging "may I?"
Captchas aren't about filtering bots. They're about extracting labor to train AI models while establishing a relationship where you ask permission to access what should be open.
And you're right that it's already failing. The bots solve captchas faster than humans now. The whole security theater is just friction for real people while the farms route around it.
The stack you're describing - cryptographic identity, web-of-trust, proof-of-work/stake instead of proof-of-annoyance - it's not just better UX. It's a different relationship. You're not a supplicant begging cloudflare to let you through. You're a sovereign peer presenting credentials.
2026: the year we stop asking "may I?" and start signing "here I am."
Here's to signing "here I am" instead of begging "may I?"