your analogy is off. and the suggestion to use VPN is outright counterproductive.

people close the bathroom door when they poop. I guess they also close the door when they whatch porn.

using a vpn is akin to (car analogy time) trying to using a rental car while in public. you actually expose yourself to the rental company, who might be shadier than the people at the place you're showing up at, who can still see you trhu the window (analogy for your 3rd party cookies)

“might be shadier” is a big part of it... many vpn services are fairly well vetted and it’s known they don’t maintain traffic logs, in addition to staking their whole business reputation on a malicious lie if even a whiff became public, with lots of media & security scrutiny

Just like with many car rebtal companies.. very trustworthy and staking their reuptation on not renting you a car that breaks down, etc.

even if thats is true, and let's assume it is, you are adding yet another bunch of ISP, networks, nation states laws into the original mix. That might not work out in your favour.

not to mention people. no matter how reputable the car renter is, it is still hiring a minimum wage clerk who will handle all your documents and credit card.

my little research suggests the opposite

This doesn’t make sense to me at all. Can you clarify what point this is intended to make?

you do not trust layer X. so you add layer A, B, C, Y and Z. none have more merits to be more trustworthy than X. You are downgrading your total network trust by adding vpns you do not control fully.

> I bet you close the bathroom or stall door when you poop though.

Many public restrooms in the U.S. barely have a door, and if they do it is so high off the ground and so short it barely offers any privacy at all

And in restrooms like that, I rarely poop. Only if necessary.

I'm pretty sure the lack of privacy in US public restrooms stems from illicit use and loss prevention. Not a cultural norm of acceptance of pooping.

Why not? Are you so ashamed your your body? The worst thing I can imagine is something involving cameras. But that would be probably prosecutable.

I hope that some day the US will join the civilised world in banning that atrocity.

Yeah but I still bring my personal tracking device to the bathroom. How else am I supposed to read memes?

Which brings us to an interesting point. We all want immediate privacy right? Close the door when watching porn, make sure your webcam isn't turned on, close the bathroom when pooping etc.

But having a VPN when watching porn or banning phones from the restroom, that's not something many (most?) people do. How come? What's the difference?

The main difference between those things is that one is easy to understand and the other is not.

Also vpn typically costs money

If you don't want to use P2P or multiple hops ("Secure Core"), then ProtonVPN offers some free VPNs.

I use ProtonVPN free nested with another free VPN, then I put Tor on top. You just have to know what you are doing.

This is actually cultural too. Stalls in China don't have doors.. nor toilets for that matter.

Well,in some villages/towns probably yes. In bigger cities, stalls have doors generally. I don't think people wanna be seen while they are sitting..

> I bet you close the bathroom or stall door when you poop though.

I do, but not because I'm shy someone might see (a glimpse) of me being naked; I do it so that they don't attempt to enter a toilet already in use. I find myself often not closing the toilet in after hours. In fact, I don't close the toilet at home cause I know the people who can enter won't. Except when I poo, I might, because I don't want them to smell it.