> Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free.
I don't think it does.
The poorer you are, the more money is worth to you relative to other things. (Because as you get more money, what you spend it on is in rough order of priority, which means the things you buy when richer are less valuable to you per dollar than the things you buy when poorer.) In particular, other things being equal, money is worth more to you relative to attention when you are poorer. Therefore, "cheaper internet but more ads" is a better tradeoff for richer people than for poorer people. So it's at least credible that relatively-well-off people agitating for more expensive internet but fewer ads might, if successful, make life worse overall for poorer people.
(This is far from watertight. For instance, if being poor makes ads more harmful to you or reduces the total amount of attention you can bestow on things -- for both of which I can at least imagine possible mechanisms -- then more-ads-more-money might not after all be a better tradeoff for poorer people than richer people even though X more-X-more-money is for most bad things X.)
> Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free.
I don't think it does.
The poorer you are, the more money is worth to you relative to other things. (Because as you get more money, what you spend it on is in rough order of priority, which means the things you buy when richer are less valuable to you per dollar than the things you buy when poorer.) In particular, other things being equal, money is worth more to you relative to attention when you are poorer. Therefore, "cheaper internet but more ads" is a better tradeoff for richer people than for poorer people. So it's at least credible that relatively-well-off people agitating for more expensive internet but fewer ads might, if successful, make life worse overall for poorer people.
(This is far from watertight. For instance, if being poor makes ads more harmful to you or reduces the total amount of attention you can bestow on things -- for both of which I can at least imagine possible mechanisms -- then more-ads-more-money might not after all be a better tradeoff for poorer people than richer people even though X more-X-more-money is for most bad things X.)