Reason for making Repo Pull Mirroring a Starter feature does not make sense
Problem to solve
The reason why free instances cannot mirror remote repos to themselves is explained here:
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/pricing/#prevent-the-ability-to-circumvent-tiering
However, the justification doesn't really make sense.
Further details
The reason why this feature is in the paid tiers, according to the handbook, is that large free instances may mirror repos to smaller paid instances in order to take advantage of the paid features at a lower price.
First of all, the direction this is talking about is the PUSH direction, which is already available in the free tier. In addition, the instance that would be using the PULL direction is the smaller paid instance.
In other words, the justification for not allowing free instances to PULL repositories is, that they may PUSH said repository to a paid instance if it were able to do so.
Proposal
The reasonable solution, in my opinion, would be to make the repository pull mirroring a free feature, as pulling any repository into a free instance does not enable said repository to take advantage of paid features.
Note: I'm sorry if there already exists an issue discussing it. There are so many issues on this project that the search function is broken.