While this guy has phrased it in the typically pompous terms of a well paid and greedy exec, ultimately free web content is absolutely a myth. Someone always has to pay, be that the advertiser, someone donating part of their wages to running a server, or even a user donation model. I realise that's fairly obvious, but seem people seem to enjoy denying that regardless.
As someone who struggled for years to get regular advertising for a website I founded and sweat blood over for seven years, it kind of annoys me when people expect everything on the internet to be free. And more importantly, there's only so much advertising to go round, particularly for smaller sites covering niche interests. Ultimately, someone has to be making money in order to advertise in the first place, which is why this whole "free is the new business model" seems like such a hilarious red herring to me.