> How so?

When I explain modern tracking practices to normal, non-technical people that have never heard of it before, on e of the most common responses is, "Why aren't they in jail?"

A lot of people feel unauthorized tracking should be a criminal offense. They currently feel powerless to do anything about it. In the long term, breeding resentment will eventually result in people finding a way to strike back. This is how bad regulation happens.

> improve reddit's content

Reddit can ask first. Getting informed consent is not hard (opt-in). Are basic manners and politeness that hard of a concept?

> already blocked said tracking

That requires specific technical knowledge. Privacy should not be limited to a technical priesthood.

> ornery

Maybe you should stop labeling people that would like to preserve privacy as "ornery".

> "Why aren't they in jail?"

In my honest opinion, if you are using a website that I built, you've given implied consent that I can record your actions while on my site. As long as I can't trace it back to an individual, and can only view it in aggregate, I don't see the problem.

You might want to go down the super honest route (ask for permission), but there's no precedent for it, cookie disclaimer doesn't count, and it would just hurt you. Unless your target audience is a subset of HN audience or other ultra-pro-privacy users.

You didn't answer the question though, how will tracking outbound links "bite the industry in the long run"? I assume the better content will be a net positive.

Because you can't keep people dumb forever. Eventually they will learn of this tracking that's going on everywhere and then people will try to block any form of data-collection, whether it's anonymized or not.