Has anyone reduced churn by actually removing their free trial?

We were getting plenty of signups with our 14day free trial, but 80% of users were ghosting us after day 3. They simply didn’t have enough skin in the game to properly set up the product.

We decided to replace the free trial with a 30day no questions asked" money back guarantee. Signups dropped by 25%, but activation soared, and 30-day retention doubled because users were actually committed to testing it out.

Have you ever gated your product more strictly and seen better long term retention as a result?