I'm not exactly sure where you live (shallow sea - where is that?) but where I live and every place I have been in my life "paying for something" usually means that I give someone money for their goods or services/or they give me money for my goods and services. So I don't understand if you are complaining about "paying" to read the forum.
While in many ways I imagine that Toby does his work "from his heart", but he has to "pay" his bills too, including the direct cost of running the forum (which is arguably the best and most popular forum in the world), and compensating himself for the time he could otherwise be working.
Advertising is what most legitimate business people would consider a "cost of doing business". Some extremely successful Fortune 500 companies spend 25% of their budget on advertising...and apparently it works because they are making billions of dollars. When a new small product comes into the kitesurfing market Toby has been very generous with allowing some initial exposure...but as a business grows and becomes successful "marketing" becomes a huge part of their plan.
As I said before some people have taken advantage of Toby's leniency in this regard and I don't blame him for putting his foot down. I think that in the early days Toby provided this forum at his own expense and risk - that's called an "investment". Again, if he felt he could rely on the "generosity" of the forum members to support him he might not need to take advertising dollars. But (no offence to my fellow kiters intended) sailors, kiters, sailboarders...we are the biggest cheapskates in the world when it comes to sport participants. So asking for commercial members to spend under 1000 eu/year is nothing.
So aside from this forum NOT being a democracy, it's also NOT a "charity". And when it comes to "freedom of speech" I think it's unfair to accuse Toby of this when there have been threads discussing dozens, if not hundreds, of products and indivdual services. If you want to know something about losing your freedom of speech try existing in Syria, China, Burma, or Iran.
Whaoooo...That was well said "robertovillate", let me know if you are looking for a job, because if so, you are hired.