There is a massive fundamental difference between having a person see your face in public, or even having a basic security camera record your face, and having a system recognize your biometric data and stalk you through every public environment with extreme precision.
The general public should absolutely not accept the imposition of being expected to be followed through every public place by private corporate entities for undisclosed purposes. We can and should aggressively push government representatives to take strong regulatory action to outlaw this behavior and aggressively punish violations.
Will making these efforts actually change matters? Maybe, maybe not. Will throwing your hands up and just assuming it's impossible to change anything and that we should all just lay down and accept it as fact lead to the worst possible outcome? Absolutely.
For reference, $30,000.00 in 1966 would equate to over ~$285,000.00 in 2024's USD.