Good for him! That's my experience with open-source software as well, if something is free, companies will almost never pay for it even if they get a ton of value out of it. On the other hand, if it's only a small amount e.g. 1,000 USD per year most companies let developers purchase that without much paperwork, so for these kind of tools such pricing is a sweetspot. If you go into enterprise sales territory things become way more complex and your sales cycles longer. For a solo founder that doesn't need to hyperscale this pricing scheme seems perfect.