"Oh, and if you hate welfare/entitlement programs... but if you [freely use this site and] you didn't pay for a subscription... you're a hypocrite."
Not really.
Is mingle2 financed by taxpayer money?
IMO myself and most people don't "really" have a problem with welfare/entitlement programs so much as they're funded by theft from taxpayers.
Passing laws backed up by police and military powers that remove your freedom if you don't pay up.
If welfare/entitlement programs were financed by people voluntarily paying their own money into them, IMO most people opposed to them wouldn't care.
Might as well make the comparison "if you hate welfare/entitlement programs...but take a free cheese sample at costco...you're a hypocrite."
This site offers free accounts and paid accounts. If you do not have a paid account on this site, you are here by the good graces of the paid members
Not really.
You are here by the good graces of the owners.
At any time they can say "no more free accounts, paid only" like other paid membership sites.
It's a purely consensual relationship in all regards.
Maybe if there was some law that required and forced people to pay for memberships and if they didn't pay for memberships then they'd go to prison you, with a free account, might be considered here "by the good graces of the paid members," but without that it's nowhere near the same.