GitLab is better than GitHub in a lot of ways, but they're still a for-profit corporation. If you're not paying, you're not their customer. You're just a user of a loss leader they offer in hopes you'll someday become a paying customer. Of course, if your repos are actually active, you're part of their product.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/04/gitlab_data_retention_policy/