Free rides, steam .. all done by WBs. When WBs went to steam there was no great influx, as I recall people did join and soon left after they saw the game play and graphics. The free ride thing doesn't make people want to stick around or upgrade. Haven't heard an original thought on here that WBs hasn't already tried.
My guess is the subscription based pricing scares people off - easy to ask mom to buy a new game on the credit card at one time cost than it is to tell her you are getting charged 15 bucks a month. WBs also didn't do a good job of promotion. Small teams don't have much in way of marketing savvy. Last, the learning curve is very steep, if you came into a game to try it out, saw iffy eye candy, poor gameplay, 10 minutes between action, you sure wouldn't stick around for countless hours to master it. Just move on to the next cool game to try out.
Still hoping for a great outcome just hope lessons are learned and not repeated.