I'm an early adopter. I genuinely enjoy exploring new ideas and trying early-stage products. But lately, when I browse launch platforms, even SideProject subreddit, it feels like almost everything is behind a paywall. Some offer a free trial, but I more often see posts saying something was vibe-coded in a few hours, and yet it costs over $50 to use. What feel odd to me is this: They are asking people for feedback. But if People can't actually use the product without paying, how people supposed to give you meaningful feedback? Is this just promoting subscriptions or asking feedback? I've seen builders ask for feedback while the core funtionality is locked unless you subscribe. That feels COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.

I understand that if you're running something expensive in the backend, like LLM API, costs add up quickly. In those cases, limiting or charging makes a bit sense. (but I still early-staging product should provide full service to get more feedback, even it spends some money from builder) But for products without significant marginal costs, does it really make sense to monetize immediately?

In business school, I was taught that early on, you should focus on growing the pie. Build users. Build trust. Now that integrating Stripe takes five minutes, it feels like some builders are obsessing over revenue before they've validated value.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe early monetization has become the dominant trend for a reason.

I'm just curious how others think about this.