Have they always given away a free GCE VM instance, though? This pretty much eliminates the motivation for having a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet for personal ti

Have they always given away a free GCE VM instance, though? This pretty much eliminates the motivation for having a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet for personal tinkering (which in turn feeds Google more business if your personal tinkering turns serious, or if you favor Google for professional work later because that what you've grown used to). There are a lot of other things on that page for which I've likewise never heard of a free tier. But the raw VM instance one is what jumped off the page at me.