A few years ago, Damien and I joined a business community (no, I won't be naming names here).
The pitch was simple: free forever.
We believed it.
We contributed.
We helped it grow to thousands of members.
Well, an email arrived: “Effective immediately, membership is now paid. Pay up or get out.” (paraphrasing here, but not by much, which is the sad part)
No warning.
No context....other than what appeared to be a money grab.
Just an invoice where trust used to be....gross.
Look....running a business costs money. I get that. But integrity shouldn’t fluctuate with your server bill.
When you build something on “free forever,” you’re making a promise AND a covenant (sidebar: Alien: Covenant was a great movie!).
Breaking it costs credibility, which is waaayyyy more valuable than dollar bills.
And once that’s gone, no discount code will buy it back.