I understand what the developers are saying. They are saying that the free relays are needed for new users.
In order for Nostr to grow you need free relays because if you don't. Then users don't want to spend time researching how to pay for a relay especially if they don't have a lightning address.
In a way it makes a bit of sense.
We can just tell users to move onto paid relays once they are comfortable on Nostr. It doesn't affect me too much. It's the free relays administrators that have to put up with that nonsense. Let them take the pain. zmy relay will continue to be paid. I don't like headaches.