I really don't understand the perspective of most people here.
Providing a service like Gitlab does costs money. The more people use it, the more it costs them. The bigger the projects they host, the more it costs them.
Maybe at one point X feature was practical for them to provide for no cost. Now that they're larger, X feature is now too costly to provide for free.
I don't think it's reasonable for everyone to use whatever pricing scheme would work at the huge scale when they haven't made it there yet. That's a recipe for killing the product fast. So - start with what works to get yourself off the ground and adapt as inflow and outflow of cash change.
If you don't like it, there are plenty of alternatives.
Providing a service like Gitlab does costs money. The more people use it, the more it costs them. The bigger the projects they host, the more it costs them.
Maybe at one point X feature was practical for them to provide for no cost. Now that they're larger, X feature is now too costly to provide for free.
I don't think it's reasonable for everyone to use whatever pricing scheme would work at the huge scale when they haven't made it there yet. That's a recipe for killing the product fast. So - start with what works to get yourself off the ground and adapt as inflow and outflow of cash change.
If you don't like it, there are plenty of alternatives.