This is the equivalent of saying that listening to buskers isn't free because they have a hat you can put money into, and if you do then you get to request a song, or saying Fortnite isn't free because you can buy paid cosmetics. Nothing in this world is free, everything at least costs you time, and it's frankly insane in this day and age to expect somebody to do game development even as a hobby and not at least set up a patreon to accept donations. Whether you like it or not, that does not make this a paid product, this game is factually and inarguably free. If you want to be kept 100% up to date with the progress reports, that's not free, you have to pay for that. Just because the devs posts progress reports for those who choose to spot them some cash does not mean this game suddenly costs you anything more than your time.
Dev has shown no behavior that makes them seem untrustworthy, I do not understand why you're crashing out over scummy and/or slow devs.
Oh wait, no, it's the naivety of people on here.
Oh wait, no, it's general hypocrisy now.
If you're going to soapbox at people, at least stick to your guns instead of moving the goalposts so much you end up knocking yourself out with them. The moment you can be quoted as saying you're not making the exact argument you started with, you've already fucked yourself and nobody will or should pay any attention to a damn thing you say past that point.
This concludes my ted talk, thank y'all for coming. I will not be responding to this any further, just had to get my two cents in here real quick.