That's a great article, but I think the author is over emphasizing a bit on the fact that the guy has PE connections. I also think that's most likely that will go in that direction, but IDK if that's the reason for it.

I think we need to be a bit more aware of our expectations from free products. By the end of the day on the free tier, and as long as you're not paying, you are a cost to the company. I think most of these problems go away if we don't rely or expect that much from free products. If we pay a little bit, even if it's just for the compute when self-hosting, it creates much healthier relationship.

The post also mentions GitHub. Let's be honest, they created a lot of value with the free tier, but we also can't have high expectations for a service we're not paying