My theory is that the new method for data vacuuming is charging a benignly small fee to make it appear that you're paying for a service and not getting raided, as opposed to using a free service where you assume they're harvesting you like an apple tree.

Exactly!

Interestingly, I was looking for this right now and realized that they don't have an app for Android and I couldn't get the information that the App Store offers about the app's permissions (probably invasive), not to mention that it probably has to connect to several dubious servers to upload data it collects from the user. I say it because I know how this business model works.

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about how apps work.