> More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters.
[Citation needed] at the last part. Of course they're not gonna prevent 100% of cheaters, but I have doubts that they don't do anything.
i think you may have misread it. no one claimed any absolute (in)effectiveness. my point was the % of cheating they do prevent is sometimes not enough to sufficiently improve the user experience, despite the large privacy tradeoffs. for example, queue for ranked in R6 Siege... saying "citation needed" on repeat is kind of lazy.
OP's point here was that anticheat - while necessary in practice - is particularly egregious at invading privacy and/or degrading the user's experience, which i think is fair to say goes against the free software ideal. the experience would certainly be worse without any anticheat, but that doesn't mean anticheat couldn't be better or isn't still very non-free.
[Citation needed] at the last part. Of course they're not gonna prevent 100% of cheaters, but I have doubts that they don't do anything.