I'd love to have access to a free search engine, email, and a video platform. But objectively running and improving those systems takes money that people is not really willing to pay for. Wikipedia is a good example on how our anchor on that everything digital must be free keeps us from developing free systems. I wish we could change that.

Now, what value do those systems provide? I would definitely be living a much different (and likely worse) life if I didn't had access to the Internet and systems like those since middle school.

it's not free, you pay with your data, privacy and is not "free" of capitalistic censorship (shadowing actual result with value because entity X bought the spot to get included at the top of your 'free' search)

wikipedia actually is free, and we do not empower it for the value it provides to our society