Well, I do the same. I won’t destroy any of their dataset, or even have a measurable impact – but in turn, I won’t have a measurable impact in positive direction either.

If they want to make a profit from me, they should pay me, or they can license correct CAPTCHA results from me under GPL.

This argument doesn't really make sense to me. What browser, OS and device are you using to post this comment? Someone made profit when you bought the device, bought the OS and/or browser.

A healthy system needs some kind of motivation. In economies, that is profits/money. What's wrong with that? (I know I am being simplistic here but...)

> A healthy system needs some kind of motivation. In economies, that is profits/money. What's wrong with that? (I know I am being simplistic here but...)

Simple.

I buy a thing, I get something – in that moment the contract is over.

VW doesn’t come to me every 3 days with "You bought a car, to continue using it, take this and drive to Hanover and deliver it there".

When I bought my computer, or its parts, I bought them, I put them together, and that’s it. The manufacturer has never asked me to do work for them, or pay for them again.

I use ARCH Linux and Firefox – projects done by volunteers, and they profit by having a better product for themselves and others.

Google profits from ads, and from selling data. That’s a tradeoff, and a reason for me to try to use as few Google products as possible.

But when government organizations use ReCaptcha, and I have to work without pay for Google, then I have no choice, and it is not something I agree with.

The devices that I buy generally don't ask me to do work for them. If they do, for example by spying on my behavior, then I'm not so happy. On the other hand, I may accept some spying/doing work for companies if I get something in return - which happens for some Google products, like search.

When doing a captcha, I don't really get anything. It's something I have to do because the website I'm using has the problem that they can't find a better way to identify bots. So I do a captcha, fine. But, if there's benefits for whatever company offers them, i.e. I'm doing work for them without getting anything in return, or without everybody getting anything in return (the GPL option), then I'm again not so happy.

Napster, torrents, and the free internet warped an entire generation's perspective on things. This sort of "everything should be free" attitude isn't going away any time soon.