In fairness, you aren't collecting people's data (even if it's just their name and email address) because it's of no value to you. It's important for people to realize that paying with their data isn't the same as "free". That said, you obviously have the right to set whatever terms you want.
People can also X out of the signup screen without giving any info
(But readers should also be willing to pay for good journalism and good writing, as one is willing to pay for monthly streaming subscriptions.)
Also, I think the data is being collected essentially exclusively to be able to send articles to people's email inboxes. That does in fact require email addresses. Views are not worthless of course, and it ideally encourages paid subscriptions, but I don't think the *data* is the point?
Websites increasingly put up login-walls to prevent their content from being scraped by AI