Data privacy is all the rage and people want to have an internet where companies need permission to sell your data and where you can use the FREE service without letting them tell advertisers what you actually like.
There are only 2 possible models for the internet
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A free internet where websites, browsers and search engines make money by selling your data to companies who want to sell their products to users.
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A subscription based internet where you companies don’t use your data but charge a fee to use a specific website, browser or search engine.
I can guarantee that all these people complaining about “muh privacy” would not like having a paywall restricted internet.
Little free libraries would like a word with your reasoning.
Nope: after the one-time costs (eg, shelf space) are paid, does it cost much to sustain?
Sustaining a web service has recurrent costs: at least power, network, maintenance or a data center subscription.
But they are sustained through time-labour and costs. Someone is still paying and devoting their time while the rest benefit, you didn’t state a lower limit.
I’ve run a free library and managed an online service for an old job.
After initial costs of ~ $300, the library took about an hour a week to maintain. I kept it clean and actively procured good items for it, and offered to pick up donations to keep the library stocked. If I billed for my time at my then-wage, transportation, cleaning supplies and repair costs(screws, stain, replacing wood) over the course of a year, it would have averaged around $100/month.
Alternatively, the web-hosted service required three domains at about $40/yr and a webserver that cost $25/month. Once it was going, it didn’t require much maintenance outside of answering user questions. I had to call up the dev around once a month to actually fix something, billed at $35/hr for no more than an hour or two. The company didn’t charge as the service promoted the larger business.
I never considered the users of either service to be “freeloading.”