The ones with ads in them are not actually free-to-play. You pay by allowing yourself to be exposed to ads.
Actually free-to-play games are either actually gifts, data-mining opportunities, or are loss-leading marketing ploys hoping that you'll pay them at some point. Pokemon GO, for example, is free to play, but they really, really, really hope that, if you play for a while, then at some point you'll break down and pay for some of the content.
Did they provide those snacks to you, and nobody else? Then yeah. If everyone was getting fed, then no.
If Morrus says, "That person is of great value to the site, I should give them something other people don't get in return," then he'd be paying for their activity, yeah.
