>Make no mistake, the Internet has never been free. There's always been a reward system that transferred value from consumers to creators and, in doing so, filled the Internet with content.

Jesus Christ I knew when I clicked on this link it was going to be corporate propaganda which pushes a specific narrative favorable to their business model, but this is just wrong.

It's one thing to say that online content has always relied on having somebody to foot the bill for infrastructure if the content can't offset that overhead itself but they're just lying as if none of those forums, IRC rooms and crazy geocities/angelfire webrings ever existed. As if there is nothing on the internet today which exists for its own sake rather than as the outcome of a creator's profit-motive.