From their FAQ:

We envision Zed as a free-to-use editor, supplemented by subscription-based, optional network features, such as:

Channels and calls Chat Channel notes We plan to allow offer our collaboration features to open source teams, free of charge.

https://zed.dev/faq#how-will-you-make-money

Now see, I'm the opposite. I would like to pay a reasonable fee to drive a silver-and-oaken stake through the heart of the collab features. I will pay real money to just make it all go away. As others have said, I work in an environment with lots of different tools so collab stuff like this is just visual noise, let me turn it all off.

Maybe there will be forks that remove all the collaboration stuff. I can't imagine it'd be that hard.

Zodium, anyone?

I have been able to disable+hide every element of the Zed UI which I don't have use for, so far.

Only thing I can't hide yet is the "sign in" in the upper-right.

i.e. very similar to how other editors approach it

e.g. vscode uses network features to make people use the non fully open source version instead of codium (and it's otherwise subventioned by MS to reach the part of the editor/programmer market visual studio can't reach but IMHO if it wouldn't be that is also how they would bring in the money)

be cool and gain traction, to later extract profits?

And what's the license exactly? The EULA says reverse engineering is forbidden, but some parts are open source.