Still arguing about what's free?
None of the updates are free. Every single second of time spent on the game is paid for, mostly by us be that via base game, expansions, LEP or ARX. Updates are updates. Whether it costs money or not is irrelevant - whether we choose to part with cash at various points over the last 6 years is all that matters. As a general rule, if we didn't do that enough then we'd not get updates.
Given I'm sure most of you should agree with this, because I'm just posting Captain Obvious stuff here... What's the point of the argument again? Maybe get back to that if it means something to you. But the willingness to self divert into a wholly directionless argument about what content is or isn't free pretty much confirms that the original discussion was pretty directionless too.
FDev have delivered, for the most part, a product on time that has been largely successful (prove it hasn't without employing opinion) with a sensibly pitched after launch update cycle that has massively expanded on their product over time. They have not particularly focused heavily on the endless cycle of bug fixing, preferring a more commonly adopted mini burst approach around launch cycles. On the other hand, they haven't particularly adopted the less commonly used method of keeping stuff in development as long as possible. Rarely has a beta lasted longer than a couple months, exceptions for pre launch obviously. They tend to launch with known issues. They don't tend to revert to development to significantly adjust entire mechanics following beta feedback. But they launch a product that infrequently results in any major negative ripples across the wider community outside of these forums (pretty much the best place to go if you want to echo chamber the most negativity possible, except Facebook but Karen posts on Facebook so who cares?).
Overall, their financial model has been a success. The game is thriving currently (more so than ever, which is rare for a 6 year old title) and although their marketing push has been steady and loud for Odyssey (and why not? It's a big change), they've been really, really careful to keep a firm lid on the hype and have drip fed us information slowly.
The estimated delivery of "early 2021" allows them a lot of wiggle room should there be delays. They've been doing this development lark for years (decades if you include their CEO's tenure, which you absolutely should) and have a pretty good track record for delivering what they proposed they would (obvious exceptions should be filed neatly under "things fdev have learned from and are unlikely to repeat with Odyssey's release cycle").
The bottom line is one of us is anxious about Odyssey's release cycle, citing both really inappropriate sources (cp2077) and more relevant ones (fdev have a history of not releasing perfect software and tend not to spend all their time fixing it) which is actually to say fdev are similar to just about any typical developer out there.
Basically, Odyssey won't be perfect. Fdev will spend several months with ongoing support for it. They won't fix everything. But other than that, what are you scared of?
And, beyond all that...
Why does it matter what updates were or weren't paid for explicitly?