Since the inception of the internet, many media players who tried to implement premium models or walled gardens have been defeated by free alternatives monetised by advertising.

And it's understandable, why would you pay for something that is available for free everywhere abundantly?

Well, this article is going to explain why you definitely should avoid free content.

1. It's toxic and addictive by design

Since free content is monetised with ads, models require to have the highest levels of exposure per post, and one of the best way to reach this result is to target the zones of the brain that release addictive hormones such as dopamine. Catchy headlines, sensational news, social media is designed to make you scroll as much as possible and come back as often as possible by pushing links and stories that appeal to your emotions. The addiction to these hormonal reactions has reached a point where it became as toxic as any other drug.

2. It lowers the value of your time

Most algorithms used by search engine and social platforms are looking at the time spent on a content to decide if it's worthy. But the worth they evaluate is not the quality of the content but rather data such as click rate, bounce rate and average time spent. Which means if an article gives you short and concise answer to your questions, the article or video gets penalised. Instead, content producers will try to make you stay longer by keeping you captivated with useless additional content.

3. Would you allow your lawyer to be paid by your opponent?

That's actually what you're doing when you consume free content: content producers are supposed to offer you content that is valuable to you in order to help you defend your interests. If you watch a video about tech trends or read an article about music, if this content is not paid by you, it's very likely to be paid by someone who's using this media to influence your decision. You end up giving your time and energy to a content that will make you take a decision that will benefit the media AND the sponsor. You actually pay double price, but indirectly.

4. Content value depends on the reach

What is the worth of a content that is consumed by the majority? How is it going to contribute in giving you an original and valuable perspective that will help you innovate or create something unique? Free content, by its mainstream reach (since it has to get the widest reach to be profitable to the creator) is contributing to created a mainstream, average, collective consciousness.

5. If not an advertiser, the author might have an agenda

Maybe this article is trying to make a point to influence your opinion based on a personal agenda. Since you didn't pay for my time, maybe I'm currently writing because it makes me feel good, or because the ideas I develop would help me connect with people who share the same opinion or influence the general opinion about this question. Maybe I'm just asking you to send me some coins in order to write better articles in the future or simply some good upvotes?

Who knows?