You did read that we never took anybody's money, right?
The shady part is doing the pivot without doing another opt-in. It's a classic bait ("Subscribe to get access to videos") and switch ("Continue paying to get access to a community and the promise of plans to make said videos in the future").
There's a major difference between trying to scam someone and pushing the boundaries to validate (and de-risk) an idea. If our ideas are shit, I will never take someone's money for that (hence the no questions asked, full refund).
These are Hacker News commenters, prototypal white knights eager to show off their perfect moral compasses, disregarding any opportunity for reflection or relativism.
No, it is not something I would have done, but I really understand the need to have some idea of what's going to work, and could see how one might go too far in pursuit of that.