This is my point. Paying for something does not mean that you are not being spied on or advertised to.

I'm contradicting the (harmful) trope that the reason ad centric data monopolies spy on us is because we refuse to pay. This just isn't true. They do it regardless.

Fairly sure with the advent of the web, Google were the first to track users on a worldwide scale, via search, adsense, analytics, chrome etc. Facebook soon followed with its popularity.

Both provide free products.

There may be added value for a seller to data collect though, of course.