Good! The less adoption of these productized solutions, the more self-hosted instances there will be. The less attractive browser signup flow is, the more attractive download this VM image or run this Ansible (etc) playbook becomes.
These companies are running a bait and switch where they draw users in with ease of getting started, and then gradually turn up the restrictions and extraction while friction keeps users from moving away. Your appeal basically boils down to Gitlab being the underdog to Github which did this despicable thing first.
These companies are a pox on the efforts of free software. Recently, Github proactively disabled the accounts of anybody that contributed to a piece of software used by a sanctioned entity, never mind their numerous repository takedowns over the years. The discussions are full of people arguing to what degree the lawyers had to do that, while basically accepting the top-down control as a foregone conclusion. That's one hell of an attractive nuisance to the detriment of software freedom.
Why should they want those people if they're so entitled anyways? For the good PR? Why are they entitled to that?
As far as I see this, Gitlab offered something for the good PR, and now they want to stop offering it and still keep the good PR. Sorry Gitlab, but you're not entitled to not have me talk shit about you. Feel free to stop offering free services, but don't expect anything from me in return.
But the deeper issue is why they had to offer free tier in the first place. I highly doubt GitLab could’ve achieved nearly as much people even if they charged $1. And that’s a bad thing, because then their competitor (GitHub) would be even more dominant and be able to push more ads/other dark patterns without users leaving because they have nowhere to go.
The bottom line is that organizations which don’t just sell software but tangible resources (servers = storage and compute = tangible) need to make money. You shouldn’t blame them for charging. Yeah they shouldn’t be taking free tier stuff away, but GitLab may literally not be able to afford keeping it up. Linux is never going to not afford not becoming a subscription.