Yar har, fiddle de dee
Being a pirate is alright to be
Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free
You are a pirate!

Lately I feel like I've been duped for years since I used to believe strongly in the phrase "if you're not paying for it, you're the product" but it feels like with every paid product or service nowadays you're STILL the product...

Yep, I take issue with that phrase as well for two reasons.

• like you say, most of the time you pay and your data is still harvested, because if you're not collecting all that valuable data your shareholders will demand to know why you're ignoring such a massive revenue stream.

• plenty of stuff IS genuinely free without you being the product. FOSS as a general rule will not track you and you aren't the product.

Now I appreciate that people who frequent Lemmy probably know about that exception to the rule, but plenty of people don't, and I've seen people refuse to use open source software because they believe it being truly free is too good to be true, so they stick with an inferior paid-for alternative thinking some black box proprietary code is more private and secure so long as you paid for it.

Pirate the ebook, buy a paper copy to support the author (they generally even earn more per paper copy, iirc). Ideally at a local book store, as they are a dying breed as well.

Don't like dead trees around? Gift it to someone. Or ask the local library if they want it