They encourage people to believe their self worth is linked to the things they own. That a persons status in society is somehow associated with how much money they have to spend.
Who's pretending? Ads naturally and quite effectively price-discriminate, and so they do make internet content cheaper for people with less money.
You may have problems with excessive consumption, but many people in developing countries do not. They desperately need the free content (educational, informative, and otherwise) that the current internet model provides them.
Well funded public broadcasters like Australia ABC provide news and entertainment content free. (both text and video)
Well funded public libraries can provide a wide range of alternate content.
While I love libraries and public broadcasting, I learned to code as a poor kid through library books, they are not the full solution and they never provided free, instant, and any time international communication for people.