alternatively, the FBI is sponsoring "free" for whoever wants it.

Given their eagerness to work with the FBI why would anyone not assume they’d give the FBI encryption keys for paid sessions of interest to them?

> There is always a cost for free.

There is? I'm not sure what my cost for clang, python, llvm, firefox, is for being free. Even wikipedia, mdn, openstreetmaps, ...

If it’s only a question of money, if a 3 letter agency or someone else pays more than you to access your unencrypted data then what happens?

Fair options:

All meetings recorded (for law agencies and similar future use) or paid version

*We take your privacy seriously.

Do you trust the sort of CEO who'd make those statements to "protect you" for the $20/month you're paying?

I suggest looking elsewhere instead of supporting Zoom.

While I understand the tradeoff they took, it also means there’s no end to end encryption if any of the party is not paying.

Imagine being in a call with 4 people, 3 of you are paying customers and you’ll need to ask the fourth to also pay Zoom to get encryption. It’s a bad deal for the paying users as well.