…the ability to experience the game with fresh eyes. It makes many of us into lemmings by chasing that BiS.
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Data mining can’t stop me because I can’t read!
(I don’t look it up)
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I’m so sorry to hear that people are putting a gun to your head and forcing you to read datamined content.
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Thank you, I appreciate it in my time of need. 
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Data mining didn’t do anything expose the lack of self-control some people have.
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Like the self-control to data mine?
Datamining is just a way for Blizzard to get feedback before releasing content. They could easily block it if they wanted to, like FFXIV does.
To a lesser extent, it’s also free marketing. Think of all the websites and content creators advertising WoW while sharing the latest datamined news.
Oh I get that it is free marketing, but I feel there is something tangible we lost as a result, and I can’t form the correct words to say exactly what it is. 
I’ll argue that the PTR and Early Access have done more harm than Datamining.
Hardly, data mining is nearly constant. The PTR and Early access are not nearly as constant
I decided with the War Within to stop reading datamined stuff besides looking at new models for gear and npcs.
I don’t care enough to keep up with all the datamined ability changes or to read walkthroughs of any of the questing anymore. I’ll see it when it comes out and not a moment sooner.
I use my free will to read the posts in my Wowhead spambot channel in my guild discord that I want to read and opt to not read the things I don’t want to read.
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You are allowed to not browse wowhead.
You do understand that it only takes visiting a wow site once for you to get articles about the game popping up everywhere? Some articles even have the datamined content in the title.
PTR does way more harm to this since it’s incomplete and, for some moronic reason, some people complain when cut or incomplete content gets cut and hold that against the released game. While there is genuine frustration that the feedback about the tested content feels like it goes straight to he rubbish bin, that’s not a reason to dislike the released game.
Oh, who am I kidding? Barely a week goes by without some fool wanting playable ogres or high elves and posting another thread about it.
It’s Sunday in a few hours so you’re technically correct. The best kind of correct.
Datamining always existed.
The free flow of information is new.
you can experience everything with your fresh eyes if you just don’t look at social media and online stream/videos, including youtube.
Datamining has nothing to do with chasing BiS.
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Pretty much this. And WoWhead loves to do clickbait articles sometimes that stir up a bees nest of engagement.
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You can ignore datamining and its still not fresh or exciting. The game is over 20 years old, you will never experience “the magic” again.
But that’s okay and doesn’t mean it can’t still be good.
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People send me info about next patch I still have no idea what’s happening until servers are up 
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Datamining has nothing to do with BiS gear lists.
Although both PTR and Datamining both kill off the excitement for a fresh patch as you’ll have it all figured out before you even press “Update”.
Then again for PTR is crucial due to no longer actually having a QA team.
In a way it did, at least with its proliferation.
Even if a person forgoes reading what’s been mined they still exist in a space where others have, and so are still by it affected to some greater or lesser degree. And as long as they interact with the community they’ll eventually absorb through osmosis all that’s been taken in by the broader culture, in this way damaging the mystique of anything new.
That there is nothing new under the sun is true. It’s also true that few, if any, are those that have experienced so much of life and man’s work that nothing is there that can the embers of their curiosity, discovery and exploration fire.
But we live in a spiritually torpid age of information, where algorithms ferry us endless streams of content, until either you wax indifferent or smartly distance yourself.
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