Gratitude for posting his quote, it helps with the explanation, and it would seem I stand corrected in that TOR isn't quite going to be as free as people might like to think; if they wish to play it at least.

That being said, if you compare a gold membership of TOR and STO, I'd expect TOR would easily come out on top as the better, more fulfilled game. Least, the way STO is going with Season 7 (and it's dilithium reduction), come Season 8 it'll probably be near impossible to gain access to STO Zen Currency save paying for it.

Edit: Maybe 'F2P' is becoming a thing of the past, and is instead acting as more of an extended Demo.