Not sure if this will impact those of us using SmartThings to Home Assistant for devices without a hub, such as Samsung appliances, but wanted to share. Personally, if they go the route of charging those that want to keep that integration, I won't be buying anything Samsung again.
Fingers crossed this won't impact those using Home Assistant!
Nice, looks like they want $60 a year from me to turn on and off my heating - less than 1500 API calls a year. That should be a dollar - no more - but happy to settle for less 
Am so glad I retired my hubs a few years ago...
My reading of this is it affects developers, not end users. A lot of the speculation in the thread you pointed to is inaccurate.
I'm not sure if paying for the privilege of access to official Samsung SmartThings API documentation is going to attract a lot of developers that are writing for a free base of users in a popular free package such as HomeAssistant. It may move developers back to what is common, reverse engineering, a hit and miss affair, that can give a poor end user experience. This may be an unwise choice on the part of Samsung, and may have undesired long term financial implications where it matters most - their long term profit line.
Having their API well documented should be a desirable state, especially from a technical support aspect. Maybe the bean counters have missed the bigger picture, and can't see the benefits of added savings vs added costs vs corporate responsibility and reputation which cannot be quantified until the horse has well and truly bolted, and the corporate rot has well and truly set in with a faded profit line.
Of course, you don't have to use their cloud, do you?
I have considerable investment in Samsung equipment, and being asked to pay for continuing use rather than upfront would invoke expectations of a large price reduction up front equivalent to the expected service life, and consideration of alternate options that don't involve ongoing usage costs.
Expecting a chew of the carrot both ways isn't going to happen. We're not that stupid - we'll take our business elsewhere! My money - my choice. Money doesn't talk - it shouts. Vote with your wallet.
The line blurs when there is a paid tier for non-commercial individual developer that uses our API to optimize their personal smart homes. That's an end user, advanced for sure, but end user.
I don't think it will affect the integration with Home Assistant or Samsung devices since that was tailor-made recently and they probably have a partnership in place. (Edit: well, seems it does!)
It also would be funny forcing a paid API to control Samsung devices just because they still do not support a local standard API like Matter.
I jumped ship from SmartThings in 2021 when they first started messing with how the system works and have been ever so much happier for it!
I have a slightly different read. And the pricing tells me they considered individuals...
~5$ USD / mo is literal chump change in IT management and marketing circles. Most executives will consider that 'quite affordable' and 'nobody would possibly complain' about that price point right? 'Stuff costs money' , right?) *also have heard (first person was in a similar room as I suspect Samsung execs are) out of Sr. IT exec and Marketing exec when discussing pricing....
We'll see how it hits. I'm less optimistic.
Specifically discussed here:
use of the Home Assistant integration will be affected by their changes and will fall under their new “personal plans.”