Nothing in this world is truly free, I get that and I know they cant maintain this with no revenue coming in, but I see a lot of it already and am curious how necessary it will become.
I don't get what everyone is getting upset about. I subscribed purely because I kept forking out to buy credits so figured I'd be better of making one monthly payment. As it stands I get monthly TP tokens and credits which I can choose to spend on clothes (at the moment) or trade in for further TP tokens. This doesn't affect how I play compared to others who don't subscribe other than it does mean when I teleport I rarely need a TP cool down which is handy for jumping from garden to garden.
You see a lot of it as the new furniture upgrades? They are no different to flasher clothes. Just flasher shelves and funky beds. All will serve the same purpose whether they are a free or a paid for item.
I chose to pay because I like tp'ing a lot and quickly. I would much rather be playing a game like Glitch where the revenue to TS is sufficient that I don't have to stare at advertisements plastered all over my screen like so many of the other apps and games that are out there.
Subscriber Only things are just clothes, future house decorations/furniture, and votes on referendums.
Stoot has said it before that he doesn't believe in paying to have advantage over other players (aka P2P vs F2P in one game, such as RuneScape) so that's why having a subscription isn't necessary to do anything in-game.
The only breakdown in this, Piratice, is that if you can trade items in game that you have paid for in real money, real money then translates into actual currents. So, if I create a couch and upgrade it to a subscriber only couch worth a number of credits and then sell it to a non-subscriber for a premium fee in currents, then I have bought credits.
But, I think that the reason TS is going through with this is that (aside from it being a hassle to code an alternative), the impact to the game economy should be rather small, and mostly unnoticeable.
Of course, people will still complain about it. A lot.