Does it matter what you think here though? Your customers gave you their data under one pretense, why do you think you can ethically change that pretense without discussing it with your customers? Said another way, you entered into a business deal with your customers and unilaterally changed the terms. I feel like if someone did that to you, you would be upset as well.
People in this thread have carefully laid out the dark patterns you are using to trick your customers into allowing you to try and make more money. This is wildly unethical, and coming to defend it on here shows us clearly that you have not thought about this from any perspective but your own.
Good luck with your company, you’re going to need it.
"you entered into a business deal with your customers and unilaterally changed the terms"
This just jumped out at me. Doesn't every agreement/TOS document these days say they can unilaterally change the terms at any time and your only recourse is to stop using the service?
I mean, I guess my point is not that it's ok, but that it emphasizes how "agreements" in our society don't seem to be actual agreements and we go around with the certainty that most will never be enforced, but then people don't always agree.
As with most of these cases, the legal text and the social understanding vary quite significantly. From a legal perspective I would not be surprised to find out that Triplebyte is in the clear here (IANAL). But from a social perspective, they are quite obviously in the wrong.
People in this thread have carefully laid out the dark patterns you are using to trick your customers into allowing you to try and make more money. This is wildly unethical, and coming to defend it on here shows us clearly that you have not thought about this from any perspective but your own.
Good luck with your company, you’re going to need it.