You'd think that more people would "get it" that the internet's greatest potential is supposed to be something like a "library" with a lot of "human knowledge and creativity". Preserve it and make it accessible. Educate. Inform.
Ironic indeed that for instance a website like wikipedia, dedicated to this, that had millions of people contribute to collecting and displaying information without adds can barely survive.
Lets face it the internet only runs for one thing anymore and that is making money.
You can be in denial as long as you want this is not going to change anymore unfortunately.
The captchas and other "obstacles" are created to hinder webbots, software written by engineers to scavage any information possible even usernames, passwords and anything of value. Yup it is a pest but less than having the admins have to sort and clean out tenthousands of fake accounts each and every week.
Its the engineers that created the internet and the engineers that ruined it, so there is where you have to complain, engineers that do commercial work on the internet and the engineers that run illegal activities on the internet incl. The cybersoldiers from ten countries.
What is even worse in my eyes is the fake information and untrue theories popping up.
Before the 1600s only the elite could read and write and maintain valuable information. Luckily we are passed that era but unfortunately every dumbo can now share his disillusional theories and fake info, even whole commercial companies are setup to sent out fake information so people are again back in the dark ages, we all should be very carefull where we get our information and from who before we are re-transmitting crap and become part of the problem ourselves.