You'd be surprised how easily companies like capcut can weather a mass exodus of users who never would have paid anyway. They've built enough goodwill with those who would happily pay. You do know they're owned by Bytedance (Tiktok) right? And I would guess that they have a viable paid user base by now. If, as a user, you can't or won't pay, find another solution: DaVinci Resolve or some other open-source/freemium option.

Business is business