Every company whose business model isn’t “I give them money and they give me stuff” is shady.
It's also worth mentioning that lots of businesses that you pay money to, track you in similar ways. The origin of it was probably supermarket loyalty cards in the pre-internet era.
The association with no-cost products is not really appropriate, and mostly seems to be progaganda from people with other business models. It was the web scale and pure digital products that let the cost drop to near zero, which synergises with ad-supported offerings, (just as "free" ad-supported TV and radio were a thing for decades). However, it also allows other business models, such as non-profits like Wikipedia, netflix subscriptions, or subsidized by necessary hardware purchases.
Similarly, just because you pay money for various Google services, doesn't really gave them any motivation to not track you.
The only time that ads don't really bother me are the rare occasions I watch sports. The breaks are more natural.
He hasn't changed though, and little has changed in what he's actually doing too. If anything, he's more mellow now than he was when he was younger. People's impressions of him have been highly twisted IMO.
as well they should be, they carried it forward like Atlas carrying the globe.. in the beginning it was competition, then, we could not stop..
Same with Elon Musk. I remember him being compared to a comic book hero. Now he's an alt-right racist (if you are a leftist) or an evil globalist technocrat (if you are a rightist).