> we want services to be sustainable - i.e. the cost of the service to be paid for by its users

All of this applies equally to businesses that were sustainable (or on a path to sustainability). The amount of money a business can responsibly spend on loss leaders like a free tier is dependent on growth rate and cost of capital.

Now that cost of capital has gone up and growth has gone down, the amount you can reasonably spend on loss leaders is comparatively tiny.

This does not mean we should expect fundamental changes in most business models going forward. Most startups did not take the Vision Fund approach to their business model that so fundamentally warped a few markets (Uber, WeWork, etc.)