Comment by Nextgrid
3 years ago
The problem that regulation is trying to solve is that if "personal data" becomes an acceptable form of payment then people won't actually have a choice and companies can force people to provide data by not offering any alternative payment methods.
The GDPR effectively outlaws using personal data as payment which IMO is a good thing because unlike money, personal data is not a one-off transaction (the data can be valid long-term) and can be misused in all kinds of ways we might not even know about yet, thus the risk is too high.
This doesn't necessarily mean advertising is banned - targeted advertising is generally beneficial to the user (if you're going to see ads, you're better seeing something you're interested about) so they could offer the user a way to set their ad preferences manually (and thus sharing personal data freely with no coercion).
This assumes that businesses hold all the power and can dictate payment methods to consumers. That's not how it works in a market economy. If there is a demand for alternative payment methods, businesses ignoring it will get outcompeted by competitors who do satisfy that demand.
In practice, they currently can. Tech companies have a monopoly in their respective verticals due to the lack of interoperability and use network effects to essentially force you to submit to whatever terms they choose.
Keep in mind that regulation isn’t usually drafted in a vacuum and instead takes the real world into account.
If tech monopolies get broken up by anti-trust regulation it would be a good time to review the GDPR (as privacy-friendly competitors can now interoperate with existing social media networks) but until then I’m happy to have it.