The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta plans to move to a “Pay for your Rights” model, where EU users will have to pay $ 168 a year (€ 160 a year) if they don’t agree to give up their fundamental right to privacy on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. History has shown that Meta’s regulator, the Irish DPC, is likely to agree to any way that Meta can bypass the GDPR. However, the company may also be able to use six words from a recent Court of Justice (CJEU) ruling to support its approach.
I would feel a lot better about it if the price was anything close to how much they actually make from people’s data. Something like $30 per year according to Facebook themselves, in 2019.
But yeah, the notion that people should be entitled to all these online services completely free of charge while also not allowing it to be paid for through advertising is ludicrous.
You could have advertising without creepy tracking surveillance. Contextual ads, based only on the content of the current page and nothing else. Still relevant, still makes money
I use adblocking software to block surveillance by ad networks, which is needed for security. I would have no problem with a website hosting ads that were more like television ads that were just hosted locally and didn’t have user tracking - but Meta aren’t offering that option. So while it might be ludicrous to expect online service free of charge without advertising, it’s not ludicrous to expect/demand it without spyware.