For sure, and it's why I even throw games money every so often as I'd like to support some of them. I still think LD (Lustful Desires) is worth it and Hyao's a solid enough guy to not pull shit like this, he just gets a *lot* of flak and it gets to him for sure.
This though, this almost feels malicious, like LT.
I wanted to give the dev the benefit of the doubt, it's out of ignorance rather than malice - since he's college student, maybe he didn't really thought out of a lot of things, that some practices should not be done. (It should be common sense tho...)
But, there are already a lot of instance he claim it's a "Big update", only to be somewhat laughable at best.
If anything, it indicates he's not being very honest, and it's a very bad thing for business build on "trust".
Not to mention it's very easy to not charge people for no update, if he so choose.
(I Kinda think people are getting used to be charge for 3 or 4 lines of update monthly already, so it's not looked as bad as it is)
And it's actually a very clear line if the dev is genuine.
Take LD for example, Even when Hyao struggled a lot, I don't think he ever said something that's away from truth just to make himself looks better.
Tho, at the end of the day, if he can finish OIHS, it doesn't matter anymore.
It's just I think most people are expecting it to be something better.