It seems to be a fairly common pattern for a startup to offer a bunch of stuff for free, or to ask for very little in return. This startup then attracts a bunch

It seems to be a fairly common pattern for a startup to offer a bunch of stuff for free, or to ask for very little in return. This startup then attracts a bunch of users, and for a while everything's good. Then the growth starts to slow down. The company needs to continue growing financially, to appease investors and so on, so they start to ratchet up their monetization. User experience and product quality begin to suffer. By this time the company is usually pretty entrenched, with some combination of having driven all their competitors out of business or by having a strong network effect. Users will want to leave, but they don't have any other viable options.