By tracking people, they understand people's behavior, what hypes there are, what kind of things people are engaging with, interested in. Then they can target specific campaigns at certain groups of people, to manipulate their opinion, or exploit them.
"They" are the ones that have control over the data. The ones that collect and process all the data, or the ones that buy it. Mostly FAANG and their clients, which are also governments.
For example, a few months ago, ironically, a department within the EU ran a campaign on X, persuading people to vote for CSAM laws. But they micro-targeted specific groups. And this is actually prohibited by EU laws itself, by the Digital Services Act (DSA). See this article:
And microtargetting is actually a common practice, used for political campaigns in the US, Australia. It's also used by Russia for disinformation campaigns. See:
I hope this helps you understand how tracking cookies can be used against you. Of course it doesn't affect you directly personally when you visit some websites. But you have to see it in the grander scale. We are collectively a group. And as a group we can be influenced, manipulated, etc. And ultimately that affects the individuals inside the group. And this has always happened, it just happens more automated these days. But if we, as a group, stand up against it, we can empower ourselves, and we can make life better for us as a group, which will ultimately impact our personal lives as well.
It's mostly about making people aware. And it does have some effect. Maybe not much, but you have to start somewhere.
Imagine a group of people living in a big house that hasn't been maintained and cleaned in a long time. Then someone starts cleaning a little window. And someone says: look at the rest of the house, do you see any change? Well of course not, but you have to start somewhere. And maybe we didn't even use the right cleaning product or technique. But by doing it, we're learning about what works and what doesn't. And we might inspire other people, and they could start cleaning other parts of the house, and we can collectively make a significant change.
It's a slow process and it might seem impossible to some people. But it is possible. Look at history, if we never made any law and order we would still be walking around as wild men.
The change we would like to see might not even be in our own lifetime. But think of the next generations. They have to deal with what we leave behind. And I'm very happy our previous generations layed the foundations for law and order on which we can continue to build.
Yes things are not perfect and they will never be. But there's always room for improvement. And why not work towards improvement instead of deterioration. Why not have a positive outlook instead of a negative one.
I'm not saying you have to go out on the street and go protesting with billboards. But we can at least try to support each other improving the system. Again we have a long way to go, but there is hope. There always is. If there wasn't, we wouldn't be here.
I don't see how removing buttons from your keyboard is helping with those issues. I do see how making people aware about the use of tracking cookies will help with raising awareness about the use of tracking cookies.
I understand you see it as an inconvenience, making the UX worse. But it's not about that, the cookie banners actually provide you information about what they use the cookies for. Which 3rd parties they share it with. It is about raising awareness.
And yeah, you have to start somewhere. If you don't do anything, nothing will change, and deterioration continues.
You do understand that the ones in control of this data have a lot of power. Do you wish to change it or are you satisfied with the situation? If you have a better idea on how to deal with this issue, that could be a helpful contribution.
Educate me step by step please using some simplified example.