free for education really is a marketing tool to get the students to use and depend on the product so that when they land a job they can convince their Product Manager to pay for it
this is business, not a charity
lol (i was extremely guilty to this)
at the time it didn’t make sense to me why i should offer something for free when it costs me money to operate
the student in question switched to a competitor, got a job at FAANG and now their bosses pay big bucks for his usage
lessons learned: offer free (subsidized) accounts to students so when they make it you could bill them or their employers