Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has lived in dictatorships and now lives in the US, I don’t see the point to your (rhetorical?) question at all. I’ve seen firsthand how much more relaxed people become when they don’t need to constantly worry about government informants (I’m from Tunisia). Of course, for the vast majority of people, living in a poor democracy is objectively worse than living in a rich dictatorship.
I can't speak for Tunisia but people in China generally don't have such worries. I'm really trying to compare two relatively stable governments, with one employing centralized censorship and power preservation and one employing decentralized censorship and power preservation. If you throw say a less well off and also oppressive government then it's a different matter.
My point is that free speech without impact is vastly better than no free speech at all, which is why I don’t see how it even makes sense to ask that question.
I think the key point is that free speech is the basic mechanism the public has to make societal or political changes. If speaking or protesting against the government is a crime, it means the public is lacking the basic mechanism to even propose such changes, let alone make them.