I think your analogy is in bad faith. What rapsey clearly meant was that it's absurd to expect to get something for nothing. No business can operate that way, so if you're not willing to pay money then you're compensating them with something else, namely your information.
Your food sample analogy is similar to a "free trial". No company offers permanent free trials (at least not without a paid alternative, such as Spotify), just as no supermarket _only_ hands out free samples without also selling that same product in their stores.
Couldn't a web business also be offering a free sample with upmarket tiers available or alternative funding? How am I supposed to tell? Why does this make it okay for the business to ignore data safety? It would be cheaper for the supermarket to ignore food safety on their free tier, but we don't let them do that.
And then the company is publicly shamed for not providing privacy and security for everyone by the exact people who would never pay for anything anyway.
Because privacy and security are less important than food safety?
How about this one: I go to the library and borrow some books. This costs me nothing. The library publishes my name, birthdate, and reading list on their website. Is that okay?
> Because privacy and security are less important than food safety?
Yes how is that even a question?
> How about this one: I go to the library and borrow some books. This costs me nothing. The library publishes my name, birthdate, and reading list on their website. Is that okay?
Your library is funded through your tax dollars. You are paying for it.
The question was really whether that was your criteria for claiming my analogy was not comparable. Reading the rest of your comment, I see now that is not the reason.
It seems to me whether or not you can get something for nothing is rather orthogonal to the question of whether it's absurd to expect privacy while not paying for anything.
Are privacy and security less important than food safety? As I posted the question my immediate thought was, as yours, obviously, but the more I think about it the less I am sure. A single security breach in a critical information service could potentially have profound far-reaching effects possibly worse than a local case of food poisoning.
Frankly I think it's absurd to expect privacy and security while not paying for anything.