Sure, but this seems like an unfair criticism for something that is currently under development still.

Why is it fair to charge people a subscription for an unfinished product*?

Speak for yourself for, as I pointed out, all of the gripes here don't reference privacy or subscriptions at all.

I'm speaking from my own personal experiences and what I've personally seen here on Lemmy. Take that with a grain of salt obviously, and make of it what you will. I'm just trying to add my perspectives and experiences to the conversation.

And I like how having the option of getting a subscription is a drawback for you.

It's absolutely a drawback when the non-subscription option is an order of magnitude more expensive, I thought that was pretty clear. And it's obvious that it's priced that way to drive people to the subscription model.