Exactly. It's not the platform itself, but it's the threat of payment. Too many things are thrown at us "for only $19.99 a month" - perhaps it's a social thing, but people are immediately wary of something if they've gotta pay for it. Especially if it's something on the Internet.
>they can get somewhere else for free I really have to agree with this. Hubski is a great community, but it's still small and content trickles in pretty slowly. I'd like to spend more time here as the conversations, as far as I've seen, never derail into memes/puns/inside jokes, etc., but I can only check it once a day. If setting up an account came with a 30 day trial period, I wouldn't have bothered and I'd just have kept spending time on reddit/looking for free alternatives.