If voluntarily we supply others with content, then by all means they can have it for free - we're giving voluntarily. But as it had been there was no means to not give it and still produce content. People being socially creative by nature, we couldn't not produce content unless we were too busy to be on social media or on principle chose not to be. So it was effectively a parasitic business model like bridge tolls collected by private companies on the public infrastructure. The social media corporations claimed that because they provided a utility (i.e. the platform) they had a right to the value of the activity produced via the utility. They elided the fact that the users are the principals in the production of value and thus have rights to the lions share of it.