Conversely, a tidal flood of free content, much of which is low quality, can motivate a consumer to shell out $$$ for something that's more curated, limited, and has a guaranteed lower limit on quality.

I know because I've done this many times in many contexts, with everything from fitness apps to programming courses to buying the latest fiction books. With all of these, there are multiple lifetimes' of free, good content out there, but good luck mining the nuggets out from the thick layer of slop.