Probably the only way privacy could be attained would be by buying a secondhand laptop for cash, wiping the hard drive and installing Linux, only using public Wi-Fi, and setting up burner accounts for everything. Then the problem remains: how do you pay for stuff in a way that can’t be easily tied to you? Perhaps a reloadable Visa or Mastercard gift certificate would work for this purpose if you paid physical cash for it at the store, but then if you’d like to reload it rather than buy a new one the whole traceable transfer problem arises again. Then if someone really wanted to trace you there’s the store’s video system.
The point of this mental exercise is not to help people obtain illicit content, it’s to show how the attention economy has eliminated all convenient options to consume media without being watched oneself! The imminent end of physical currency will make it impossible to earn or spend money without being watched. Because the attention economy pays our fees for us and makes it more convenient to transact, it will always be more appealing to most people.
