This isn't even close to true. The people who are serious about privacy and the open Web, and in the technologies posited to bring that about (such as self-sovereign identity and federation), tend to spend much more money.

They buy servers to self-host services, extra hardware to store data locally and domain names to let others find them. Those who cannot afford it sometimes join niche communities like the Tildeverse as an outlet for the interest.

In my experience it's largely the 'just not interested' camp who always go for the free webmail and whatever free messaging service comes with their phone.