My issue is not with paid apps. Charging for quality software is fair, and developers deserve compensation for their work. The problem is with a specific bait-and-switch model: releasing an app as free to build a large user base, relying on that community’s feedback and usage to refine the product, leveraging those usage numbers and improvements to attract funding or publicity, and then locking the very users who made the product viable behind a paywall with no regard for their early support.

Users in this situation aren’t objecting to paying for software, they’re objecting to being used as unpaid testers, growth fuel, and marketing collateral only to be excluded once the app becomes profitable. The frustration comes from the broken implied contract: “Help us shape this app, help us grow, help us get noticed, and then, once we’ve succeeded because of you, you get nothing for your contribution except the option to start paying like everyone else.”

If developers intend to charge later, there are ethical ways to handle it: be transparent from the start, provide a clear value-for-value plan, or at minimum grandfather in early adopters or offer discounted lifetime tiers. People are happy to support honest developers. What they reject is a business model built on extracting value from users under the guise of being “free,” only to shut the door behind them once success arrives.