[phmqk76]

Offering free services, especially while burning through VC cash, as a tactic to gain market share, and then discontinuing the free service when you’re ready to make money, should be considered an antitrust violation. It warps the market, keeps competition low, and sucks for consumers.

That said, I try to avoid free services now. Kagi unlimited at $10/mo replaced Google for me, I pay for Google Workspace (though only out of a desire not to take the time and energy to migrate), Dropbox, etc. If a service is a hobby for a company and not its core product, I try to avoid that, too.