To clarify, the sentiment seems to be that we should legislate the requirement that a consumer must explicitly consent to any service whereby, in lieu of payment, the consumer is delivered targeted advertisement based on the data generated by their use of the service rather than take the consumer use of the service as implicit consent.

I'm not proposing legislation outlawing any particular business model. If someone can make "free" work while respecting customer data ownership, more power to them.

What I am saying that customer data should legally belong to the customer, and if that makes some business models infeasible, so be it.

Given the context of GDPR data portability, it seems more likely that they're saying that businesses shouldn't have a right to hold data hostage as a method of lock-in, especially in lieu of providing a service people like enough to voluntarily stick with. The "targeted advertising as payment" thing is a separate can of worms that they may or may not care about.