The difference is that there are actually companies out there that will sell you the raw data they collected. E.g. your name and address if they have, your browsing history obtained through shady extension and so on.

So there is a difference between selling the data and hoarding it to show targeted ads.

And while both may not be cool, to me anyone with some money being able to buy my data is clearly worse. So it's helpful distinguishing there. It's not all "selling your data". You are also doing your argument a disservice by lumping it all into the same bucket.