The web is free because companies are profiting off your data. In no way has server costs ever been free.
Cost of hosting and bandwidth is asymptotically approaching zero. For most things it can be easily subsidized with pocket change. For bigger things, the pre-tollbooth-on-everything Web has already figured out Bittorrent and p2p protocols where basically the receiver pays/subsidizes it through their ISP.
How is that different from what banks do right now for all your transactions? It's the exact same and owned by Wall Street oligarchy (Morgan Stanley, Goldman, BoA, Citibank, etc). The only difference is that you can't reverse the transaction.
As for the rest of your argument, I agree; although, idealistic and unlikely. I simply found it ludicrous that author thought the internet is powered by fairy dust.
In the real world rich are getting richer and use their wealth to gain even more control too. But in a PoS system this is not a bug, but the core mechanic of the system. You can't even make a PoS system that is even slightly egalitarian, because then a "rich" wallet could be split into many "poor" sockpuppet ones and gain even more influence.
You don't need to rent hosting.
The web is also free because I can use it to promote myself and my work by writing articles, posting images, doing whatever I like.
I'm willing to pay the hosting fees for that and it's my decision not to pass this on to any visitors.
You are willing to pay hosting fees. But do you pay for Gmail, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and a whole host of other platforms that the majority of the population uses?
Remind me how companies that have billions of users pay for it? How many people are going to visit your website compares to theirs? How much do people like you contribute to the entire revenue stream?
The creator economy is tiny compared to these platforms.