They are beholden to whoever pays them. You ever notice how people start out groundbreaking and the bigger they get, the more tame and repetitive they get?

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. 

Exactly which mean people can’t speak 100% freely 

BlokchainB

And in a lot of cases there is no "instead of" option.  Non-main stream content simply cannot be paid in any other way as advertisers will not monetize controversial opinions. 

petar

bitcoin

Streaming micropayments are solving the economic asymmetry caused by advertising

I think the key here is having options and the content creator can choose his monetization strategy instead of just relying on ads to pay the bills. 