[earthscienceman]

While you're correct in the purest sense of what you say, this is an unfair realization of the exchange. It's very zoomed in to the micro level. The macro level is much more interesting.

It's not wanting free stuff. "Meta", and many many web services, literally scream "hey here's a free way to connect with your friends" or whatever their pitch is. And then operate in ways that violate the rights of the people they attract to use their service in the name of "more money" (note, more money because the reality of it is that Meta could easily offer privacy and still operate, just at lower profits). Offering a paid version, in the way that this does, is putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. It's holding you hostage and saying "you can use this the way we intend and we'll violate your privacy or you can pay for that to not happen".

When in reality the proper way to have such an exchange would be to say "Dear Users, the service we provide you costs $200 a year, however if you would like that to be free you can opt in to these incredibly hostile and violating contracts if you would like". But, we all know that no one would join that service because it's too honest about its exploitative nature and so the user-hostile nature of these companies goes on ad nauseam.