alt Hacker NewsDespite what I just said, I do hope so, because I'm really not inclined to pay for it, at least not very much. I don't need another $100-200/mo bill in my life, and it doesn't provide that level of value as a chatbot. Google is enough.
I'm not sure that free tier will necessarily continue forever though, unless there is a way to monetize it (presumably by advertising, or by selling data they've gleaned about the user), or perhaps if there is no privacy and the provider is treating you as a source of free data. Right now we're still in the market-share grabbing "never mind the profits, count the users" stage.
A free tier will almost always exist. Mostly for the reasons you already describe. That's a training ground for their small models as well as a way to get full access to new training data (and advertisements). As well as funnel new paying users. Why would you ever give that up?