You don't need to profit off every single customer. Many business models make 90%+ of their revenue from 'whales' and crumbs from the rest. Optimising for consistent margin from every single customer could be a waste of time; a distraction, and could even hurt a business.
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To me, those stories seem like good arguments for reducing the usage limits of the free tier, but not getting rid of it entirely.
You don't need to profit off every single customer. Many business models make 90%+ of their revenue from 'whales' and crumbs from the rest. Optimising for consistent margin from every single customer could be a waste of time; a distraction, and could even hurt a business.
Why do all the big clouds have generous free tiers with reasonable limits then?