> The Software Creations BBS was not an amateur effort

Yeah, and it was a BBS ran and backed by a software development company that used it as a channel to promote and sell their software. IOW, they were not offering the infrastructure "for free".

> I already had a job deploying Linux and BSD systems in production at a corporate job

Which means that there was someone paying your employer to support it. Again, not doing it "for free".

I think you and the others responding to me are just trying to disprove the specifics of my comment but entirely missing the meat of the argument: I am far from being "a 27 year-old who just graduated business school", but I agree with GP said: people will not pay for digital services unless they absolutely have to, so companies that try to make a living by offering a quality service in exchange for payment will invariably lose to someone that offers their product "for free" but exploits their customers elsewhere.