It depends on the expectations of each participant. What it is not, is a market mechanism, because the producer/supplier/seller is setting the price/value of the item transacted at zero. So the correct price of the item will always be zero and the vast majority will pay exactly that, even if they could and would be willing to pay more to get access to the item. So anybody expecting the outcome to be similar to that of a normal efficient market will eventually get frustrated, as we constantly see here with the droves of "content creators" who bitch and moan about "not being valued" -- they are the ones not valuing their own content though. For those not having these type of expectation and understanding that lack of barriers to access is what defines ownership (so, if you put out a content for free and without access controls, you don't own it and can't expect payment for it), it's a great model because every single penny they receive is more than their own valuation of the item they gave away for free. They are receiving more than they signal to other participants that they deserve, which is great.