Apply the same logic to any other illegal rights violation that companies could do to citizens.

Facebook has 3 options available:

1. Only provide their service to paying customers, no free EU version.

2. Don’t provide the service in the EU at all

3. Provide their service to paying customers, and a free version that doesnt’t violate the law.

What they’re currently doing is “provide their service to paying customers, and a free version that violates the users rights” — that is not a legitimate option, regardless of which rights are being violated or laws are being broken.

You don’t just get to break laws or violate rights because you’d make less money otherwise. You also don’t have to provide the service for free, but they seem to still want to do that.

Privacy is an important right like any other. It cant simply be traded away. I may agree to work for pennies in your sweat shop, but the state prevents that being a legal trade.

Don't I agree to give up my privacy everytime I step outside?

No. In many places in Europe (at least in my country) it is illegal to record specific people (and use the footage for anything other than completely personal use). People have a reasonable expectation of some privacy while out in public spaces in most circumstances.

Now, if you're at a public concert or any type of large gathering, you have less of a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Privacy isn't binary, you can give up some but not all. After all you have a bathroom door in your private home.

Scale matters. Someone walking past you on the street, or recording everything you do are two very different cases even if all the info is there in both cases. It's not only the action that matters but also the intent and the consequences. Other laws take this into consideration, why not privacy laws?

People and systems are not the same and usually have different purposes. You give up a little privacy in to a person, they don't pay attention, forget, the info is trapped in their head to be converted in vague words. You give up a lot of privacy to a computer, they remember everything accurately and connect different data points across time, space, and systems.

The EU just has a difference stance on privacy, it's as simple as that. You just got used to be disadvantaged by these rules and it looks abnormal when others don't see it that way.

The EU does not allow you to trade away your privacy rights in exchange for free goods or services.

It 100% does allow exactly that

https://www.spiegel.de/

Plus Der Spiegel ironically has a pop up offering “consent to tracking” or “pay to be ad-free”

If it's newspapers, the EU apparently has a carve out because newspapers feel good sand legislators read them when they were young

Yea that user is just wrong, is though this opinion from the privacy board (who knows if it matters at all) is that pay or consent should be illegal.

It is not. It is limited to the context of Large Online Platforms, as defined (iirc) in the DSA.

I believe the edpb will later publish guidelines on consent or pay for other companies, which will impact many news agencies.

Meta had $135 billion in revenue last year vs Der Spiegel's $0.3 billion.

Obviously, the largest offenders are going to be the top priority for limited enforcement resources.

If there are strings attached, it is not free. The currency change. EU simply think privacy is not a valid currency in this case.

They can just offer the paid service, and remove the free one. That should show the EU, right?

That does seem to be the issue, pay or consent is illegal, but just pay pretty much has to be legal since that's how a lot of services already work.