How much would Facebook cost if users has to pay cash? I think the Economist did a survey on this topic with Google search and the average price people were willing to pay was $1,500 a year. If Google switched from monetizing user data and advertising to charging money, how much human productivity would be lost because some people can't afford a good search engine? How much would this exacerbate academic difficulties of poorer student if we add the fact that their classmates can search online information more effectively because their parents can afford Google search?
The lack of tangibility of paying for products with personal data instead of money can be irksome, but it has created an unprecedented ability to build large, complex services while delivering them free of (monetary) cost to the end user.
That aside - FB never gave users that choice. Where many media services - including AOL, streaming media companies, and newspapers (and the Economist) survive by charging a subscription, FB has never attempted to use that business model.
Why? Because FB has always been a data harvesting and user monitoring/profiling operation that happens to operate a social media front, rather than vice versa.
Ditto Google for search.
And "telling users about it in some capacity" is very different to giving users a list of buyers and full details describing what their personal data was used for.
Realistically, no one outside the industry - and not that many people in the industry - understand where this data ends up and what it's used for.
Pretending otherwise is casuistry and special pleading. There is no way users can estimate the true value of their data, either individually or in aggregate - because the value is determined by buyers who remain hidden and unnamed, and neither FB nor the buyers are obliged to explain any part of the process.
There is no informed consent here. It's a perfect corporate asymmetry, and very much designed that way.
Also, the value of this information isn't secret: Google and Facebook are public companies and publish their revenue numbers, no? It's not hard to divide by the number of active users to get an average value per user.
They don't plant a bug in your pocket without knowledge, or consent to learn what other art museums and galleries you are visiting to assess if they are a worthy target of restriction or takeover. They don't insist on knowing your entire contact list and SMS history just to look at the pictures. They don't ban employees of other galleries and museums from visiting. Not least because 9 times out of 10 they would not know if they worked for a different city's gallery.
I'm not defending all of Facebook's practices. In particular, any surreptitious attempt to collect sensitive user data without permission, or in violation of permission, is terrible. We might differ on what constitutes "sensitive user data" or "permission" but whatever.
Regardless, that's not what we're actually talking about here, and if the museum in question did ask for user consent to a full cavity search before going through, I don't think that actually changes the calculus of what's fair for them to provide to their competitors.
Popular art museums generally run with allowing entry without requiring membership. They make up for that by collecting donations or entry fee, running a comparatively expensive cafe, and ensuring everyone leaves via the gift shop. They might heavily promote, and employ people to individually sell memberships, or give free membership in exchange for monthly gift shop and offers spam. One or two might be a little too heavy handed in promoting membership over visit.
They don't plant a bug in your pocket without knowledge, or consent to learn what other art museums and galleries you are visiting to assess if they are a worthy target of restriction or takeover. They don't insist on knowing your entire contact list and SMS history just to look at the pictures. They don't ban employees of other galleries and museums from visiting. Not least because 9 times out of 10 they would not know if they worked for a different city's gallery.
That's enough torturing. ;)
One of the above is a fair exchange, that can be freely and knowingly chosen. The other is using undisclosed and underhand methods to get extra leverage. That, by definition, cannot be fair. Turns out it's illegal too.
This is one of the very rare cases where I wish the UK had a little more of the US's litigious culture. In my 50 odd years it's the first and only case. Normally I wish for the reverse. :)