“you want the what the customer is buying like the heart of like why do they want this thing to be part of what they're getting and they're paying for that $300 or they'll feel sort of tricked and duped right”

Keep the product's core promise free or customers feel tricked

Skylight draws the paywall line at the product's core promise: photo-sharing to grandma stays free, videos go behind the paywall. Calendar management stays free, meal planning is a subscription. When the feature a customer bought the device for is paywalled, the emotional response is betrayal rather than aspiration. Define the core promise of your product explicitly, and never put it behind a paywall regardless of conversion impact.