It matters for integrity. They promised 100% free forever. But anyway, death and betrayal aren't necessarily the only options. As others have suggested, they can try soliciting donations more forcefully.

If that doesn't work, they could introduce premium features. Stuff that obviously has to cost money would make the pill easier to swallow, for example, features that depends on third party services (only LLMs come to mind right now), or human assistance (real-life instructors). Admittedly, this would be a compromise. One could argue it fails on the 100% part, but another could argue that 100% of existing features remain free.