By now, I've already read a lot about the myths and realities concerning the sub-domain vs sub-directory chaos. But that is not what my question really is. What I really want to know is that whether the sub-domains provided by free hosting sites hurt the SEO of my site. Take, for example, freehostingnoads.net - a website that provides free hosting but imposes a must-have sub-domain restriction. If I wanted to register a site called "mysite", I would rather have to choose "mysite.freehostingnoads.com". Now, if I choose this (or any similar site) for hosting my website, will my SEO ranking be impacted?
For what I've come to know, it's just the content that matters. But they probably didn't even consider the "free hosting sub-domain" case.