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by ninkendo 236 days ago
I think the answers pretty obvious?

A product is free. Then it isn’t free.

You can argue all day whether it’s ok to do this, and I’d absolutely say it’s fine, even laudable that they’re trying to make a real business where you have to pay for a product. Great for them!

But “rug pull” is absolutely still a correct description of what’s happening, because it was free, and now it’s not. Here’s a nice rug, but you have to get off of it by $DATE because we’re going to pull it. It’s a rug pull.

If it wasn’t a rug pull, I’d be able to keep standing on the rug (the free version.)
1 comments
khamidou 235 days ago
Very strange logic. If we follow your example, going to the dealership and taking a car for a test drive is a rug pull because eventually the car dealer will ask you to pay for the car?
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ninkendo 234 days ago
No, because that would be absurd. You're not "following my example", you're using reductio ad absurdum. Any phrase can sound stupid if you take it out of context like that.

To make a non-fallacious analogy: If a ride sharing service gave car rides for free for a month, and a friend said "I'm going to use this instead of buying a car", you would very rightly say "they're going to pull the rug on the free rides, you may want to rethink that". And that would be a perfectly valid thing to say, even if the company told everyone the free rides were only for a month. Because the purpose of the discussion is whether it's a good idea to depend on the free service or not.

You seem hung up on this, like it's a judgement call or something. Maybe just free yourself of negative connotations with the term. It's fine to do this. I don't think it's a problem whatsoever.

The phrase is useful for what the metaphor implies: Likening using the product to sitting on a rug. If you start getting used to your place on the rug (putting your stuff on it, eating dinner on the rug, etc), you have to be aware that they're going to pull it, so you have to have a plan for when that happens (either pay or switch to a competitor.) Being aware of this is important: If you start developing a workflow that depends on this kind of software, you have to understand that it won't be free in the future and that you should either not depend on it, or be willing to pay. This is all fine.

The fact that you don't like the negative connotation doesn't mean the phrase isn't applicable.

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