I'm uncomfortable with the fact that Marco would frequently proclaim his support for indie development, but was also willing to outright lose money in order to undercut his competition and dominate the podcast market. (In his own words.) Yes, if you have a lot of money, you can acquire tons of customers by releasing your app for free and using a half-hearted "patronage" model. Most developers don't have that option. It might make good business sense, but doing it while saying you care about the indie scene strikes me as hypocritical. (I concede that this is perhaps a petty and uncharitable interpretation of events, but it really miffed me when it was happening.)

As for subscriptions, I simply hate that business model with a passion and will do almost anything to avoid it.