Sorry Kevin,
Hookpad is a tool with many uses; it’s a songwriting guide, an educational tool, and as you noted, it’s the interface used by our community to contribute analyses to the Theorytab database.
There should not be any feature that requires being a Plus user to contribute high quality analyses to the database. All chords are available and there are no restrictions in what can be analyzed.
Midi export is a songwriting feature that is used for creating personal songs and then importing into Ableton, Logic, etc. which is why we think it’s an appropriate Plus feature. It may not be obvious, but the majority of songs created with Hookpad are actually original private compositions that are not visible to the public.
We currently run Hooktheory on the side (we all have full time day jobs) and this isn’t something that is making us rich. Plus subscriptions support our hosting costs, development efforts, and hopefully could lead to something more one day.
We are incredibly lucky to have such a generous community that is willing to donate their time to make Hooktheory a great place to learn about music.
Sorry for any misunderstanding and hopefully this clarifies somewhat where we are coming from with regards to what we do and do not charge for.
-Dave
Co-Founder, Hoooktheory.com