You sign up for a free account, you get what you pay for.

I have to admit, I agree with this.

However, personally, I do care. I feel that some of these paid account creation options only allow cryptocurrency as payment. For many, the STEEM is a gateway for those that don't know anything about cryptocurrency to eventually becoming a cryptocurrency user. Without the free account option, we shut down this gateway for people to learn or even people that only want to uses STEEM purely for the social media aspect.

The off-chain account creation concept may very well be a good alternative solution.