What other corporation requires paying to license their patent portfolio in order to be allowed buy their products? I don't have to pay for a license from McDonald's to eat their burger. I'm not an expert in this domain, so there might be more relevant example.
You do have to agree to the McDonald's app terms and conditions so you can get its benefits, like skipping the line. You pay twice: first, with money; then, with data.
You're paying to skip the line using data, but you're not paying for the meal with data. If you could only purchase the meal using the app, then you could make the argument that some part of the meal price could be paid from the data itself. I don't know if there are vending machines that will only sell if you have the relevant app installed first, but I think those come closer.
However, unless the terms of service of any of those approaches penalized me for buying a meal at Burger King, then we aren't quite at the same level of scrutiny as opposed to what was reported to have happened in this article.
Update: fixed up my wording.