The creators have mentioned the switch to payment many times. Its not a surprise, episode 10 and the finale were always supposed to be part of the final, paid, product only. From what I remember its supposed to be about $20. They have always been very open and honest about the game and I feel its a bit undeserved for you to be calling it a "bait and switch" move
Well you can feel however you like, doesn't matter to me. If I had seen them mention anything about charging, obviously I wouldn't have had the reaction I got. I read every update and I did not see it. It might have been talked about before I started or I just missed it all together. But I know it wasn't mentioned several times. So it might not be a surprise to you, but it was for me. And yes, if you look at from somebody else's point of view who had no knowledge of the planned pricing, it does look like a bait and switch. Either way, I still love the stories and wholly support the creators in challenging the stigma. I just wish I'd have known at the beginning so I wouldn't have invested so much time in it.
Out of curiosity to see if I somehow missed the conversation about pricing I went back and read all the Newsletters and dev logs for the last 15 months. There was talk about patron tier and character pricing but only 1 mention in a newsletter for April about charging for chapter 10 and they wanted to get the word out about it, but there was no mention after that until now. Maybe it was talked about on other platforms but nothing on Itch.