Consent is one basis for collection. “Legitimate interest” is another. You need consent when you don’t have a strong enough argument under legitimate interest or another lawful basis.
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
One of the main things about GDPR though is getting companies to give a monkeys about the rationale for the data collection - even if they use the legitimate interests argument, part of it is that they now have to actively prepare for that, show the legitimate interest and rationalise it to regulators.
I guess the crux of the question is in ambiguous terms like "personal freedoms", etc. that the regulation says should be weighted against "Legitimate Interest" of whoever collects data.