Hacker News is an advertisement for Y Combinator.
Let's not pretend that this is a charity.
It's also worth noting that the operators of such "free" services don't publicly take the haughty attitude of "if you don't like the service, you can have a refund of $0". You'll never hear that rhetoric from dang. They want people to use their services. Only unaffiliated outside defenders use that rhetoric.
Who are you referring to? I'm not the one who requested a response from the moderators.