Absolutely competitors. If you're building something relatively sophisticated, they can gain a competitive advantage over you by using portions of the code you've developed with your time/money.
I have not seen any negative consequences of making project viewable on Github, rather the opposite where you missing out on opportunities to get noticed. I had the same thought last year when I started my first serious startup, we ended up not doing it which was a mistake because it made it so much more difficult to do later, because of shortcuts with secrets and Github issues, but in the end we did it later!
If you think about doing it, make no mistakes and just do it from the start!
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 38.8 ms ] threadThat is, if OP is really concerned about the $7. I don't think he is.
In other words, what features does it offer for early stage projects that Github, Atlassian, etc don't?
If it's an alpha/beta or just a proof of concept then state that or you may have issues with public expectations.
If you plan on making a business around this project, might make some paths more difficult to take or lower the bar for competition.
Other then that, I'm sure the other cautions that they bring up aren't as big of an issue.
You are basically ok in my book so long as you plop a copy-left license on it.
If you think about doing it, make no mistakes and just do it from the start!
If you take the time to set the tone for the project you have more room to resist change requests that are in conflict with the vision.