The concept that the internet doesn't cost money harkens back to the days when the only people who were hosting content were community driven enthusiasts. The fact that "shit costs money" is even an argument here is a symptom of the greater problem that corporatism has invaded a community space for profit.

I guess you can argue that corporatism has made the internet more accessible, to a degree. Really corporatism has only increased the exposure of a handful of social media sites. But that doesn't really change what their goal is, which is to squeeze money out of people trying to socialize.

Now that they have invaded what was once a space for enthusiasts and tech minds, made it into a people trap and scape money off the backend with metadata, the idea that they're now asking people directly for money that they can no longer make due to their government protecting them is grotesque and an absurd direction for services like these to go in.

Don't pretend like Facebook, youtube, et al don't make enough money hand over foot to just to cover their operating costs already. They're asking for money for profit. Billion dollar companies are now asking directly for profit because they can't extort a newly formed protection.

I suppose selling a better experience is one thing. There's legitimacy in that. Although selling a reprieve from a bad experience that you created (youtube) is a bit like creating a problem to sell the solution, which is still fucked.