IDA free is a long running joke.

Hexrays have a long history of pricing non-professionals out. Super high fees, expensive upgrades and an extremely useless free version is a slap in the face to anyone that wasn't born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Hacker unfriendly, closed source, shitty SDK and constantly breaking API. I haven't used IDA in years and I have no desire to go back.

This blatant grab at relevancy is too little, too late IMO.

There are loads of great, free or inexpensive RE tools that we should focus on instead.

All hail the King