Its not stripping them of service though is it? Its providing them with the zoom service, but its specifically removing encryption to expose the conversations of non paying people to the police. This is not about them saving money its about them intentionally choosing to hand up non paying customer chats to law enforcement.

Also from a customer satisfaction / PR perspective I am hard pressed to think of a worse time for a company to announce this.

I am not applauding this. I just point out how corporations work now.

Sure, we can ignore that the Zoom CEO mentioned anything at all about law enforcement and focus solely on the financial aspect. If we do that, then why have a free segment at all? Go ahead and make it completely for pay.

It's all up to financial incentives. I am not saying it is right. The whole system is not right.

1) Encryption costs are marginal.

2) He didn't say it was a costly operation so they're charging for it. They said it was for LEO purposes.