> The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads

I don't think we always need to broaden this out to industry wide levels. We can talk about things specifically. In this case, X/Twitter has put a login wall in front of posts to boost signups. It never used to. That's a meaningful difference that people seek alternatives to.

They went login only in the wake of Hi-Q vs LinkedIn, which established that scraping a login-free site is legal.