The problem with the "Free Tier Nazi" mentality is that you will inevitably run up against users with the "that's fine I didn't want to trial your software anyways" mentality. The industry's most successful software businesses come from piracy-agnostic platforms like Adobe's CS6 and Steve Duda's Serum. If you aren't going to take the Figma route of letting users try your software in production while evaluating it, you're going to miss conversions.
But what do I know, maybe Seinfeld is a better ground truth for product design than common intuition.
The figma route is exactly the case were the cost of service is very low. It make sense for Figma to offer a free tier because it costs them almost nothing. But when you have to keep the data available in submillisecond latency it is to expensive to sponsor a free tier.
But what do I know, maybe Seinfeld is a better ground truth for product design than common intuition.