Is freemium still a good GTM?

I keep hearing that freemium is "over" in 2025.

Users expect everything free, and conversion rates are tanking with limits. But then I look around and see some of the biggest SaaS wins built entirely on freemium- Dropbox, Slack, Calendly, and even Notion to some extent. These aren't ancient relics, they're still dominating their spaces. But yes, they started way back in the day.

So what's the real story here? Are we just seeing survivorship bias, or is freemium actually harder to execute than people realize?

I'm building a scheduling tool myself (Like Calendly Pro, but with major improvements) and wrestling with this exact question. My gut says keep the core free to lower barriers and let the product speak for itself. But the freemium is dead chorus is loud (it's a noise on X to be honest)

Are we overthinking it, or has the freemium playbook actually changed in ways that matter?