My best friend got me playing it, he started playing it with his 6 year old son. But since my friend died last year I only play when his son calls me to join him. Hearing this news I will be canceling my subscription however.
It is still totally free to play, but there is the battle pass and you can pay a monthly subscription to get a skin, coins, and the battle pass for free.
You can get the battlepass through in-game money (950 v-bucks/season). I was gifted my first battlepass and a skin by stream mates years ago and I haven't paid a single cent to Fortnite.
This person literally just means "for no additional charge" but typed free. They understand, they just don't care. This is just unnecessary and pedantic.
It's a common shortcut in at least some parts of the US to say "I paid for X and got Y for free" ... everybody knows it really wasn't "for free". It's just easier than "and got Y for no additional charge", "and they didn't charge me anything extra for Y", etc.
I appreciate that, but that's not what was being said.
They were saying that fortnite was free with an optional battle pass. Or you can pay for a package which gives you skins and coins and then the battle pass if free. But you aren't paying for skins and coins and getting a free battle pass. You are paying for a battle pass, skins, and coins. That's just the cost. There's no deal or money off or "for no additional cost" it costs more to get the battle pass with the skins and coins.
What you said might be true, but you are talking about something else. This person mis-spoke.
As far as I can tell, this doesn't have anything to do with Epic Games, the developers. Shell was paying twitch streamers directly to promote their initiative through playing Fortnite.
My nephew and his friends has been obsessed with it for a year now. He's 9. They are still releasing seasons and skins I have to buy for him. The relatively recent Futurama ones were cool.