[vermilingua]

I would change “ostensibly free” to “nominally free”. While you pay no up front cost, you are worth a dollar value to these companies.

That money isn’t being spun out of thin air, it’s being extracted from you somehow.

Whether that method of abstraction is getting you to buy something you otherwise wouldn’t have, or by using your data to manipulate others to do the same; they exact their toll on you.