Is taking steps to stay anonymous online ultimately futile?
Running open source browsers with anti ad and tracking features at least guarantee big corporations can't as easily gather data on you but this is about where the ease ends.
For example, lets say your next step is downloading software to further configure your computer for privacy, like email clients, torrent clients, virtual machines, misc productivity tools, etc. You download these through Tor but your ISP still knows you're connecting to Tor, so how the fuck am I supposed to download software to evade prying eyes when those prying eyes will, by my download activity, be able to determine I am trying to evade them and probably take steps to do le sneaky shit. Obviously, you'd use a tustworthy and transparent VPN along with Tor, but YOU CAN'T GET THE FUCKING VPN COMPLETELY ANONYMOUSLY EITHER. You can pay with crypto but the steps you take to buy crypto will be known so they know you; 1. are into crypto 2. used it to purchase a VPN. Yeah, maybe you're off the grid after these two steps by this time you've probably done so much internet research on this they've got a nice little log and can get a good idea of what you're trying to do and why. They know XYZ user purchased a VPN with crypto and will keep tabs on you.
Am I supposed to get a burner laptop and configure it somewhere else besides my own house, load all the installers onto an encrypted usb, and load it onto my desired computer? If I do that, who can still see what software I run on my computer? What the FUCK