I don't care about the same-IP thing being premium or not, so I don't have a personal interest in it, and every change will generally bring about people who are upset, so I'm not even that concerned over the threats of people to stop supporting or to leave. I think that is probably a given. So it's fairly easy for me to be completely unbiased about this issue
But I definitely do agree this was gone about in a very bad way, that communication about it was bad, and that the responses are pretty dismissive. And being a business person, I even understand about the bottom line. But in the past it seems things could be discussed and that people could accept that they need to wait and see how things pan out, i.e. whether the gain is worth the loss. And I can even see how it might be difficult to face this thread full of acid and have to just put on a strong front and stick to their guns. But I agree it was hidden behind a "feature," and people will react more strongly and not try to understand when something sneaks up behind them with no warning and they feel they've been duped. It's not like they sent out a message warning people of what was going to happen, with a bit of notice, and explaining the reasons for it, and give people time to adjust, instead of just coming here one day and finding something different - surprise!
And I do think some of the reasoning is a bit flawed. I suspect there's a very small percent of people who come here just to avoid ever buying any games, or at least out of people who can afford them and could probably afford to pay this place, i.e. the ones seriously taking advantage. (Although, when you offer something for free, then people do take advantage of it, and not necessarily in an ill-intended way.) I suspect the number of people who have purchased games due to being able to try them out here, or discover them here, outweighs that. Or, even my own personal case, where I buy a new game(s)
instead of becoming a paying member here cause I can't afford both - isn't it better that I buy the game? Or at least by their reasoning, it should be. Is this reason really a thing, or just imagination? I'm sure the publishers are perfectly aware that some people take advantage. Or maybe it was a publisher that got upset and led to this - and I think in that case they could say so, without even naming anyone.
And I even understand that they don't need anyone's permission for anything they do. It's their site. It's just one of those situations where you have to make decisions, and sometimes have a choice between doing what people want, and doing what you want at a cost of people.
But what if instead they give fair warning about the same-IP thing, with some notice, and then say BUT we're also going to introduce a new feature to go along with it, to cushion that blow a bit. (Too late for that of course.)