> Isn't it up to consumers and the company to find the equilibrium price?

Remember, Facebook’s users are not the consumers. They are the sources of surveillance capitalism’s crucial surplus: the objects of a technologically advanced and increasingly inescapable raw-material-extraction operation. Surveillance capitalism’s actual customers are the enterprises that trade in its markets for future behavior.

Who is paying the $120/yr? Advertisers or consumers?

Recall that the fee was only implemented to comply with the EU regulation and ostensibly to make up for the revenue not gained from selling behavioral information. If you want to test who Facebook’s real customers are, look at whose interests they put first.

Why does this matter? Users and Meta mutually agree to this. What kind of nanny state prevents grown adults from entering a contact that hands nobody else?

The “choice” for users amounts to “let us track you, or completely disconnect from commerce and communication.” That is not a choice, that is extortion. Especially when you add a literal protection fee to it.