> There is no free internet without ads.

of course there is. Because there was. It existed. Eventually we got banner ads. It just got worse after that. People ran their own servers, so did companies. They paid to have their own content online for whatever reason they wished. And often you would get cut off, "so and so's website can only serve 200 requests a day, come back tomorrow." My server runs ad free for no other reason than I want it there with some of my content. Ads enabled a bigger internet and "content creators" who work full time growing the internet. The internet was just fine without these professional content creators.

So only rich people who can afford to run their own servers and have the technical knowledge to put one together should be allowed to share content?

people who didn't run servers shared stuff all the time (email, forums, etc). For it to be hosted, someone had to find it worthwhile and have the funds, yeah.

You don't need to be rich or have any strong technical knowledge. Setting up and running your own website is cheap and easy, and even if you don't want to do that, there are plenty of others who provide fora to you.

It's not a straw-man, a question has been asked and answered.

I pay my ISP bill. Everyone else can take their problems with my "free" internet to them.

> There is no free internet without ads.

Nonsense. Of course there is. It may not include Google, IG, YouTube, etc., true, but that's very far from the entire internet.

And, notably, I pay money to YouTube.