Yes, users are expecting content for free because they're being given content for free. They're also being given a pile of garbage data in the form of ads, and there's nothing wrong with dumping that garbage, in the same way you are free to throw away the ad pages of a free newspaper, or toss the ad flyer that comes with your pizza.
Content creators are facilitating the business model of Google and most big business on the internet, which is that they give things away for free (yes free, I don't have to do anything or sign any contracts to watch a YouTube video) and they hope that advertisers will pay for the chance at their ad to be seen by people watching. Nowhere in there does the audience get a say, nor is the audience asked for their consent, nor is the audience forced into any kind of actual contract that the audience clearly understands.
Content creators, having lived in this world created by Ad-tech for so long, have grown entitled to the eyeballs, the attention, and the time of their audience. The train of thought goes like this:
"I'm entitled to be paid for my work. I get paid when my audience watches ads. Hence I am entitled to have my audience watch ads."
But that isn't true at all! They're entitled to be paid by the advertiser according to whatever terms that creator has with that advertiser. The creator though has no agreement and no terms with the audience so NO, the audience has no obligation to do anything for the content creator.
If content creators aren't comfy with this situation, they can try to actually build an agreement with their audience, where the costs and the payments are clearly laid out. That's hard to do so few do it, but that's the actual, ethical thing to do instead of complain that users aren't watching ads; if watching ads was actually ethically required then lowering the volume or looking away when an ad plays would be decried as piracy, and while I'm sure that'll happen once eye-tracking starts being built into the mobile app, it'll be as stupid to complain about then as it is now.