This is a reductive view of the economy: one pays for something whenever one trades something of value to one’s counterparty to something that’s of value to oneself. In many cases, in fact, it’s preferable to do this sort of “bartering” to reduce the expenditure of money you might need for other things.

Finally, I have, in fact, benefitted personally from products that were advertised to me on the basis of user tracking data so a bit ambivalent about the anti-tracking argument.