I have to agree, working people up the story without a mention of the cost before hand is a scam move.
Should have promoted it as a partial story at the least. The price isn’t the issue, its how it was done. I can live without the ending just for that,
Another game I followed was forced to start charging partially through due to other platforms and offered it for free till the next update,
I paid for that just out of respect for the authors dedication to his word and will donate more in the future or just buy future work outright on the other platforms.
This is pretty much the exact opposite, more of a dirty move than the story.
I would have had no issue paying for the next project because it was high quality work…but this is entirely different.