How did browsers make money before they sold user's data?

I remember the old AOL promo disks, they gave away to sign up for aol but they were basically a browser and isp iirc. Or atleast thats what i thought it was when i was 10. The point being, there seemed to be a fairly large gap between paying for browser service and browsers selling your first born child's identity to pay for the fines they got for stealing people's data. Im not calling any one or the other out and if you need me to then youre already too fucked to care.

I find it very very very difficult to justify ever spending money on any SaaS and i think its the fault of the browser peeps. The few SaaS ive fucked with used to always be minitool or the otherone for data recovery. I was yound and new to the industry because i didnt have even an email address till i was 33 and that was balls deep in pandemic. The point im getting to tho is that how much fucking service and work are they really putting into a product that is basically running cli commands anyone can usually find and run. Not much changes with 99% of set up pc's so what the fuck could they be updating and slaving over that they can justify some out fucking landish prices.

The most transparent one ive used was as a trial and i did pay for a couple months. That was screaming frog... then i learned everything is already there on the internet anyway so just take the time and scrape it .anually, which lasted about a week and within a month i was able to find keys, access full databases of competators and all by not doing fuck all illegal. Im not talking big companies but still. Am i just too used to working in te mines to know most people would rather pay to have it done than learn or put the work into doing it?

Oh and i almost forgot to bring this full circle. Browsers fucking update almost daily trying to keep up with the internet demands. They always have multiple versions testing diggeremt shit, they are one of the most widely used products and/or services by just about fuckin everyone.

So thats my full circle: microsoft pays people to putout broken products that break other products theyre plugged into. Google mak3s you pay for their security that also ranks highest under most security and data breaches, tinder is just getting paid for buttfucking you into thinking your guna buttfuck someone, i cant fucking believe what they charge now. Partition wizard does the same shit prssing Ctrl and clicking start menu button does on windows (along with tons of other similar software swervice providers who just run cli commands with a gui. ALL OF THEM CHARGING AN ARM AND A LEG meanwhile ive been using ff, ddg and chrome every day got the past 20 years plus. Have never had a security issue i didnt personally cause my self or by using social media nack in the day. But looking accross the field and the players in play, what the fuck are they actually charging for and why are people still paying for the shit.