Thanks for being forthright. How did you test the MVP before you joined YC and had venture funding? Did you pay from your pockets
Personally I hope it ends up either freemium or with a reasonable price ideally token based. I very much want to pay to incentivize development of good products but I already subscribe to enough things which is why I hope for more token based services.
(Of course if something is good enough and the pricing is reasonable there are sometimes room for exceptions. Kagi and Telegram are the latest ones for me and only Kagi is "safe", Telegram is mostly as a way to express my gratitude.)