This reminds me of something I used to say:
"I'd rather build something with 1000 paying customers instead of 1,000,000 free users"
(... who I'd eventually have to try and monetise in uncomfortable ways)
"I'd rather build something with 1000 paying customers instead of 1,000,000 free users"
(... who I'd eventually have to try and monetise in uncomfortable ways)
income from the 1000, worldly impact from the 1000000.
In my experience, 'free' users can often be far more demanding (and draining) to deal with. While this is obviously some value to garnered from them, they can rapidly suck the life and passion out of a system or network, to the detriment of those who have paid, which can then create dissent from actual 'customers'.