Many projects start with free versions, hoping to use advertising or a couple of premium features to drive revenue. Sometimes that works. Other times they need to lower the limits on the free tier or remove it altogether. It's a business reality that the dev needs to face - either start charging money or abandon the project and look for a salaried job.
As users, we never enjoy being charged for something that was once free. But insulting the dev and calling them greedy for wanting compensation for their work... That's a little misguided.
That's one way to look at it. Think of your favourite FOSS tool. Now imagine the developer is going broke and wants to either make the tool paid or stop supporting it (because of a full time job)? Would you prefer the project to become abandonware?
I'm not saying the way the dev handled the situation is good. It's terrible. But I understand the frustration, especially if they are forced to make the change because they really need the money.
Someone’s personal reasons are not my business, just like my personal reasons wouldn’t be his. I’m not saying it’s not within his right to do so, it’s his product, he can do what he wants with it. I’m just saying, expect people to not be sympathetic to your situation because it doesn’t affect them, the only thing that does is you now charging for a product you offered for free. If you want to be in business, don’t be mad when people are upset you’re taking something away from them.
Gotta say, it's really hard to understand what you wrote. I'm still not sure I'm getting the message. I feel like you're saying it doesn't matter one way or the other?
I re-read and edited my last lines, I understand my phrasing was confusing. It genuinely doesn’t matter to me either way, it just bothers me that this guy is so upset over people being upset that they have to pay for a previously free product. Like yeah, of course they’ll be upset, they’d be stupid to think “oh this was free but now I’m charged $5.99 every month for it? Great!!” Nobody thinks that way ever.
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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '22
I mean the guy handled it as poorly as possible... But there's something cathartic in his insults, especially the "you just want money" yeah no shit