A 2023 study concluded CAPTCHAs are 'a tracking cookie farm for profit masquerading as a security service' that made us spend 819 million hours clicking on traffic lights to generate nearly $1 trillion for Google

A 2023 UC Irvine study reveals that Google's reCAPTCHA system has consumed 819 million human hours while generating nearly $1 trillion in value through tracking cookies and AI training data. The research demonstrates that bots now outperform humans in completing these security checks, suggesting reCAPTCHA primarily serves as a data collection tool rather than a security measure.