The whole "let me just pay for it, remove ads" argument against online tracking is problematic: Not everyone has the spare cash to pay for a bunch of online services.
It's the "let them eat cake" of digital activism.
Because if ads can only reach people with less money, what kinds of ads will those be? Predatory loans, gambling, etc.
And the argument "It's ok to track your behavior if you don't have the money to buy yourself out of it" is a really bad look.
@tante I never thought about it from this perspective...
Ugh.
There is an argument to be made to find ways of paying for services aside from tracking ads.
Ads without tracking (but those aren't competetive). Other ways of collecting funds. But forcing it on the individual is basically just buying higher classes out of it.
@tante It is okay to require money in exchange for providing services to people.
Unrelated: the rest of your argument against the "cash-or-ads" model is pretty interesting and sounds valid. I'll think about it.
In the end it would lead to class differences being expressed even more significantly: People with fewer means will either not be able to participate but be bombarded with increasingly hostile advertisements.