I think that the current system actually maximizes the chances of someone adopting WK. If the first levels were as challenging (in terms of pace and amount of material) as the more advanced levels, I think much more people would quit immediately.
Also one can pay monthly if she/he is still undecided after the first free levels.
By the time you reach level 3 and you’re still not sure, a month subscription doesn’t cost too much will get you to level 5/6/7/8 depending on your speed. By that time you can either cancel subscription or keep paying. I don’t think it is too high a price to pay
I thought that while you were on free trial you weren’t able to see the content for levels 4+? Am I remembering wrong, or have they changed things?
No, you’re right 
I remember feeling frustrated by that because I knew a lot of the level 1-3 stuff from prior study and I wanted to see when it would get to new material. But, I do understand why they wouldn’t want to expose all of the information for free…
As someone that just started his subscription this morning, I think the first three levels did a good job of showing me what WaniKani is all about. Keep in mind two months ago, I didn’t know much of anything regarding Japanese so the entire concept of Kanji was new to me. I enrolled here on February 25th and this morning I excitedly got my first radicals in the Master ranking.
Of course now that I’m subscribed my Lesson count just exploded, so I need to get to work. 
I believe that they should raise the free level in fact I believe that they should all be free and that everbody should have access to this information simply due to the fact that not everybody has the extra 7 to 9 dollars a month for over a year to spend
Anything else you’d like? Some digestives and tea while we’re at it?
Sooo, who’s gonna pay for the servers and all the work the WK staff does?
Servers and staff are a lie, it’s actually located in space using some sort of magic, and durtle slavery, and they’re making a profit behind this disgusting facade ! They’re even making us do stupid riddles to unlock their own potental and gain even more profit !!
All websites nowadays reside in the cloud. Clouds are free! They’re just water vapour anyway.
But… what about the cool moms in the clouds ?!
Dat cumulonimbus tho…
“Other people’s work should be free”
I started WK a month ago and it seemed “too slow” only for one week until i gurued radicals and opened 40+ new items to learn. So if people quit, they do so not because WK is too slow, but because they cannot stick to one thing for a longer than 2 days. Also it’s not the pressure that make WK so amazing, but the technique itself. And everybody who gets to at least level 2 understands how effective it is. So I think, 3 free levels are more than enough to learn to appreciate it
Actually, this is not so absurd. In the United States, works by creators who died 70 years earlier enter the public domain. That means that you just have to:
Sure, since not everyone has money, Tofugu team should just give it up for free and starve. They don’t need money for their toil, right?
I’m going to be a radical presence and suggest that levels 1-4 should be both free and accelerated, and also that the radical/kanji/vocabulary lists should be available to everybody from level 1, but that the item details pages should only be viewable to paying users.
Level 5 is such a huge increase in items that I think the slower speed would feel more natural there. Having it be a free level might also be a huge demotivational thing, too.