[1f60c]

IME this all started after MSFT acquired GitHub but well before vibe coding took the world by storm.

ETA: Tangentially, private repos became free under Microsoft ownership in 2019. If they hadn't done that, they could've extracted $4 per month from every vibe coder forever(!)

[globular-toast]

Why would every vibe coder necessarily use private repos?

IIRC they were kinda forced to make private repos free because competitors like Gitlab had it and they felt threatened.

[dizhn]

Is someone who is not really using github's free service losing something important?

[_heimdall]

As an individual, likely not. As a team or organization there are nice benefits though.