Keeps lights on and a roof over my head vs starvation.
Aitum's multichat feature (which was free) is moving to a monthly subscription, and they are understandably getting backlash for it.
I'd like to offer a different perspective. Yes, ofc everyone hates subscriptions — and it feels bad when something that was provided for free all of a sudden becomes paid. You can call it deceptive, misleading, dishonest, bait-and-switch etc. and I wouldn't exactly blame you for feeling that way.
On the other hand, there's a lot of cost that goes into providing these tools, not just for the time spent creating the tools — there's server costs, distribution, infrastructure, support etc., and these are all ongoing costs that scale as these tools reach a wider audience. Monthly costs typically increase over time too, regardless of audience size.
So devs are stuck in a situation where:
(1) Their monthly costs continually go up
(2) They're never allowed to increase their prices/charge for their work
The reality is the vast majority of streamers don't want to pay for shit, which is fine — this is a hobby for almost all of you, not a job.
But for the devs, this is quite literally their job — and in the streaming space, the majority of the devs making some of the most useful tools are not backed by large corporations. Many are small teams or solo devs, working on niche tools for an extremely limited market size.
As a dev, people always tell me I should get paid for what I do, until I start charging for it — then I get accused of begging for money.
Devs are in a lose lose situation. They either have to charge to keep the lights on, or keep losing money to make people happy. Give them a little bit of grace.