Just to clarify, the Steem blockchain requires someone to pay the account creation fee to open a new account.
For users who use the Steemit.com signup and go through the approval process, Steemit, Inc. pays for the account creation fee for those users.
SteemConnect is just a UI interface to the blockchain. When users use that to create an account, they are just going straight to the blockchain and creating the account themselves by paying the account creation fee out of their own account.
Thanks for clarifying that up, @timcliff. :)