The decision of whether or not to use the trial or to purchase a license/subscription is entirely up to the individual. With that said, the idea of the free trial is simply to allow free users to take the Premium version for a test drive to see how they like it in the hopes that they might decide that it is worth purchasing, which many of them do (though not all of course, which is why an option to deactivate the trial exists in the first place as it was deliberately put there by Malwarebytes' Developers to allow users the choice to terminate the trial if they prefer to remain using just the free version/features).

Instructions on how to do so can be found in this support article. If you really don't want the trial then instead of going through and disabling all of the Premium features, you may instead simply deactivate the trial which will completely eliminate all of those features via a single control. I think this is someone's idea of trying to be clever and re-invent the wheel.

So does the x mean 'click to deactivate' or does it mean 'currently deactivated'? It's totally confusing. It says 'Notify me of replies' and next to it is some kind of sliding switch control, with an 'X'on, but when you click the 'X', it turns into a check. While I'm here, there's a VERY confusing button on this page. But installing it onto my computer without permission and saying 'You're HAVING this'. I don't even mind if the program (discreetly) invites me to upgrade to the premium version. I have no objection to the developers wanting to make a bit of money, or upsell products. If this kind of behavior keeps up, I will be permanently uninstalling the software, because it's making me very nervous about whether I can trust the developers. Most people are simply never going to find that unless they come on here and ask for help (as I did). Yes, I found out how to disable it, but it's REALLY hard to find (Settings > Account Details > 'Deactivate' button at the bottom). To me, this is exactly the kind of behavior I use anti-malware software to PREVENT! On more than one occasion now, when I've installed the latest version, it's installed a free trial of software, without even asking me! I am starting to find this program a bit of a nuisance - it's almost acting like malware itself!

Malwarebytes free trial