if everything was paid content, the content would be much better. free content wont be as good as paid content in my opinion. you can see the effects with steem. we pay with our attention and voting power. content creators get real $ out of it, if they exchange for btc than to fiat. content without advertisement is much better in terms of privacy etc. we are paying with our data, identities for the "free" content. so i strongly believe in concepts like STEEMit or BAT