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We've charged for it since the beginning. We charge because stats take additional CPU usage and bandwidth that we must provision and pay for.
By offering it as an option, we reward those users who don't need it with a lower price. This keeps our base price low and only those people who need stats will be the ones paying for stats. It's the most fair way of doing it. I don't like how some other companies give tons of "freebies" but then have very high prices to make up for it.