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I'm surprised so many replies here are about removing a free tier 2 years ago. Things cost money, what did you expect? Whenever I get free products that cost mo

I'm surprised so many replies here are about removing a free tier 2 years ago. Things cost money, what did you expect? Whenever I get free products that cost money I expect it's either temporary, or I'm being the product myself.

andrenotgiant 1y ago
didn't help that they called it "Free forever" before taking it away. Lesson learned
- ksec 1y ago
  I only remember it was called "Hobby" Plan.
- andreybaskov 1y ago
  understandable, but again, "forever" as in heat death of the universe? Sadly there is no such thing as forever either.
  - arthurcolle 1y ago
    Then call it something else
    - samlambert 1y ago
      we did. we called it the Hobby plan. we never said forever.
      - eskibars 1y ago
        https://web.archive.org/web/20240124013352/https://planetscale.com/pricing https://web.archive.org/web/20240124013352/https://planetsca... Says "free forever"
        zzmbnp 1y ago
        "Hobby Free forever for hobby use" Wow. The guy is a jerk and a liar. The board at PlanetScale needs to get this guy off the internet. He's too much of an asshole to be seen in public. I have no real horse in this race. I know how to manage my own databases, but I do have people asking me about PlanetScale and asking me to use it for certain projects, and I will absolutely never do so now.
      - zenlot 1y ago
        What are you arguing about? People send you web archive links and you're still stubborn enough to say that it wasn't the case. Shame to even see you here, just shows what kind of company you are from the inside.
      - bomewish 1y ago
        you answered this after someone just posted the wayback. what gives?
        zenlot 1y ago
        Seen previous responses? Also, do you think he doesn't know it?
        samlambert 1y ago
        read the timestamps, i did not post it after the wayback.
      - RagnarD 1y ago
        I'm pretty disinclined to ever use PlanetScale when the CEO is here either ignorant of what his company actually said, or actively gaslighting people.
        AYBABTME 1y ago
        I mean, can you picture some marketing copy somewhere on a website saying something you didn't remember? It's not hard to imagine that not every word ever written about a product tier was remembered by the CEO.
        deaux 1y ago
        What are you even saying? This is the bloody pricing page. If I as the CEO of a SaaS startup don't even know what our pricing page says I should step down. That's our offer, that's the most important page we have. Come on now. Writing "free forever" isn't something some rogue marketing intern does, this is a core positioning decision and something you'd absolutely be part of, if not leading, as the founder.
      - hu3 1y ago
        note to self: add planetscale to banlist and not-recommended-list of techs
      - samlambert 1y ago
        correcting this. i've been proven wrong we did say forever.
  - tweetle_beetle 1y ago
    To be fair the CEO is quite comfortable using the word 'forever'. It was used as the title of the announcement to withdraw the Hobby tier and also specifically used to justify it: > We’ve chosen to build a company that can last forever. This is why I have made the decision to prioritize profitability for PlanetScale. https://planetscale.com/blog/planetscale-forever https://planetscale.com/blog/planetscale-forever
- samlambert 1y ago
  we never said that
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Hobby Free forever for hobby use
  - davedx 1y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20240105211154/https://planetscale.com/pricing https://web.archive.org/web/20240105211154/https://planetsca... > Hobby > Free forever for hobby use
    - samlambert 1y ago
      wow we did you are right. I am corrected. That's not good.
      - jetpackjoe 1y ago
        Can you promise the $5 tier isn't going away?
        samlambert 1y ago
        for sure. it makes money for us and will lead to more usage. i am stoked we have this.
  - darig 1y ago
    [dead]
  - wildrhythms 1y ago
    This kind of reply is not a good look for you or your company I think
  - DetroitThrow 1y ago
    as much as I question why someone would trust a free "forever" offer, I have a lot more questions about a company that is denying what's in the public record.
- eskibars 1y ago
  So as some of my own feelings/thoughts on this: I've also sat on the "receiving side" of a "free forever" campaign now 2 times in my career. The first time driven by the CEO and the second time driven by the marketing team (and supported by the CEO). In both cases, I knew the truth (sitting on the product management side) that there was no sustainable way to have a "free forever" campaign: that there was finite end in both cases on the 2-5 year horizon before we needed to change plans. I advocated against adding the "forever" verbiage knowing this. The first time, I didn't push strongly: it was my mistake. The second time, I pushed strongly and made sure the entire executive team knew that we would be misleading our users. I pointed to the horizon and talked about the problems with "forever" language. I had to push very strongly back on the marketing team to change verbiage and then they silently made updates anyway to add "forever" verbiage. They were eventually fired for this. But what I find concerning here isn't that the "free" tier went away (it almost always must) but that there's denial and push-back in this set of threads about the verbiage. You made a mistake. Own it and apologize for the verbiage you put out there. Don't deny that it was ever there or argue over pedantic details about where/how that verbiage was placed.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
If somebody built a service to try out planetscale or the fact that planetscale was constantly hyped around / sponsored some big names atleast in the youtube scale, I am pretty sure that some people went there thinking about the free forever and everything... I do think it was a little bad move because now you can't even test planetscale and the memories of its free stuff still might haunt some people
- samlambert 1y ago
  Were we supposed to just keep it up until we go out of business or something? Out of sheer duty. Like burn everything we built to the ground to keep the free tier going as long as possible? Endlessly indentured to provide a free service on the internet for people that will never pay us money so that the people that do pay us money can eventually have to move provider too because we are shutting down? I didn't enjoy doing it. I felt bad but I don't regret it at all.
  - puches 1y ago
    Its hard shutting down services and nobody wants to do it. I've been there as a CTO and co-founder, but you made the right decision. Glad to see the new $5 plan because, imo, Planetscale is the best database to build with for majority of applications.
    - samlambert 1y ago
      thank you
      - zenlot 1y ago
        Just don't forget to add 5$ "forever"
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    Fair take I guess, but my curiosity wants me to ask how big were the costs of the free tier that it was trying to make you shut down.. Do you feel as if people were abusing the free tier ? Was the only solution according to PlanetScale be to close the free tier entirely? How much were the people actually using the service (like out of 100 people who signed up, how many people were constantly utilizing it till its fullest) or ( maybe abusing it even) If lets say that you could build your company once again or you could start planetscale from its beginnings, would you still take this decision before it was big, since I feel like as if the free tier was a key part in atleast giving PlanetScale some name/fame. I can understand how you feel but I just feel like there were a lot of people who were advocates of your software, partially because of how people could test it out for free as well and those advocates were the one who were hurt the most. Personally, I wasn't involved but I would pretty bummed too if I advocate a service and it does something like this, although, I would still understand the situation.
zzmbnp 1y ago
More surprising is what a jerk the CEO of PlanetScale is. He's on Twitter being nasty at everyone and everything. The guy is toxic as hell. He posted this: "I would like to thank the haters for helping me promote the new PlanetScale $5 plan all day. Thanks guys." Scorching his reputation on Hacker News is a real 400 IQ movie for a cloud database company CEO.
crossroadsguy 1y ago
So it’s important to point out when a company still engages in such practices.
nromiun 1y ago
So? Maybe don't offer a free tier if you can't sustain it? And many other providers (like Neon, Koyeb, Supabase etc) still offer a free tier. Personally I don't like this type of bait and switch. If you can't sustain something don't offer it in the first place. Same with open source projects going closed source for money after getting free work from open source programmers.
cess11 1y ago
Many of us grew up on stuff like SDF/Freeshell and IRC and ad-supported web hosts. "Free forever" actually meant "free forever" to us, until services that used the same language to make promises ripped us off and turned us more cynical.
pjc50 1y ago
Indeed. I'm a user of Cloudflare free and Oracle(tm) Always Free(sic) services, but for hobby projects where I'm not under the illusion that they owe me anything. I think the longevity of Gmail, Youtube etc being both (a) absolutely free and (b) personally critical to many people has rather warped expectations in this regard. Take the freebie, be grateful, but don't imagine that giving no money to a corporation is going to incur any obligation from them to you.

andrenotgiant 1y ago

didn't help that they called it "Free forever" before taking it away. Lesson learned

ksec 1y ago
I only remember it was called "Hobby" Plan.
andreybaskov 1y ago
understandable, but again, "forever" as in heat death of the universe? Sadly there is no such thing as forever either.
- arthurcolle 1y ago
  Then call it something else
  - samlambert 1y ago
    we did. we called it the Hobby plan. we never said forever.
    - eskibars 1y ago
      https://web.archive.org/web/20240124013352/https://planetscale.com/pricing https://web.archive.org/web/20240124013352/https://planetsca... Says "free forever"
      - zzmbnp 1y ago
        "Hobby Free forever for hobby use" Wow. The guy is a jerk and a liar. The board at PlanetScale needs to get this guy off the internet. He's too much of an asshole to be seen in public. I have no real horse in this race. I know how to manage my own databases, but I do have people asking me about PlanetScale and asking me to use it for certain projects, and I will absolutely never do so now.
    - zenlot 1y ago
      What are you arguing about? People send you web archive links and you're still stubborn enough to say that it wasn't the case. Shame to even see you here, just shows what kind of company you are from the inside.
    - bomewish 1y ago
      you answered this after someone just posted the wayback. what gives?
      - zenlot 1y ago
        Seen previous responses? Also, do you think he doesn't know it?
      - samlambert 1y ago
        read the timestamps, i did not post it after the wayback.
    - RagnarD 1y ago
      I'm pretty disinclined to ever use PlanetScale when the CEO is here either ignorant of what his company actually said, or actively gaslighting people.
      - AYBABTME 1y ago
        I mean, can you picture some marketing copy somewhere on a website saying something you didn't remember? It's not hard to imagine that not every word ever written about a product tier was remembered by the CEO.
        deaux 1y ago
        What are you even saying? This is the bloody pricing page. If I as the CEO of a SaaS startup don't even know what our pricing page says I should step down. That's our offer, that's the most important page we have. Come on now. Writing "free forever" isn't something some rogue marketing intern does, this is a core positioning decision and something you'd absolutely be part of, if not leading, as the founder.
    - hu3 1y ago
      note to self: add planetscale to banlist and not-recommended-list of techs
    - samlambert 1y ago
      correcting this. i've been proven wrong we did say forever.
- tweetle_beetle 1y ago
  To be fair the CEO is quite comfortable using the word 'forever'. It was used as the title of the announcement to withdraw the Hobby tier and also specifically used to justify it: > We’ve chosen to build a company that can last forever. This is why I have made the decision to prioritize profitability for PlanetScale. https://planetscale.com/blog/planetscale-forever https://planetscale.com/blog/planetscale-forever
samlambert 1y ago
we never said that
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Hobby Free forever for hobby use
- davedx 1y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20240105211154/https://planetscale.com/pricing https://web.archive.org/web/20240105211154/https://planetsca... > Hobby > Free forever for hobby use
  - samlambert 1y ago
    wow we did you are right. I am corrected. That's not good.
    - jetpackjoe 1y ago
      Can you promise the $5 tier isn't going away?
      - samlambert 1y ago
        for sure. it makes money for us and will lead to more usage. i am stoked we have this.
- darig 1y ago
  [dead]
- wildrhythms 1y ago
  This kind of reply is not a good look for you or your company I think
- DetroitThrow 1y ago
  as much as I question why someone would trust a free "forever" offer, I have a lot more questions about a company that is denying what's in the public record.
eskibars 1y ago
So as some of my own feelings/thoughts on this: I've also sat on the "receiving side" of a "free forever" campaign now 2 times in my career. The first time driven by the CEO and the second time driven by the marketing team (and supported by the CEO). In both cases, I knew the truth (sitting on the product management side) that there was no sustainable way to have a "free forever" campaign: that there was finite end in both cases on the 2-5 year horizon before we needed to change plans. I advocated against adding the "forever" verbiage knowing this. The first time, I didn't push strongly: it was my mistake. The second time, I pushed strongly and made sure the entire executive team knew that we would be misleading our users. I pointed to the horizon and talked about the problems with "forever" language. I had to push very strongly back on the marketing team to change verbiage and then they silently made updates anyway to add "forever" verbiage. They were eventually fired for this. But what I find concerning here isn't that the "free" tier went away (it almost always must) but that there's denial and push-back in this set of threads about the verbiage. You made a mistake. Own it and apologize for the verbiage you put out there. Don't deny that it was ever there or argue over pedantic details about where/how that verbiage was placed.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

If somebody built a service to try out planetscale or the fact that planetscale was constantly hyped around / sponsored some big names atleast in the youtube scale, I am pretty sure that some people went there thinking about the free forever and everything... I do think it was a little bad move because now you can't even test planetscale and the memories of its free stuff still might haunt some people

samlambert 1y ago
Were we supposed to just keep it up until we go out of business or something? Out of sheer duty. Like burn everything we built to the ground to keep the free tier going as long as possible? Endlessly indentured to provide a free service on the internet for people that will never pay us money so that the people that do pay us money can eventually have to move provider too because we are shutting down? I didn't enjoy doing it. I felt bad but I don't regret it at all.
- puches 1y ago
  Its hard shutting down services and nobody wants to do it. I've been there as a CTO and co-founder, but you made the right decision. Glad to see the new $5 plan because, imo, Planetscale is the best database to build with for majority of applications.
  - samlambert 1y ago
    thank you
    - zenlot 1y ago
      Just don't forget to add 5$ "forever"
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  Fair take I guess, but my curiosity wants me to ask how big were the costs of the free tier that it was trying to make you shut down.. Do you feel as if people were abusing the free tier ? Was the only solution according to PlanetScale be to close the free tier entirely? How much were the people actually using the service (like out of 100 people who signed up, how many people were constantly utilizing it till its fullest) or ( maybe abusing it even) If lets say that you could build your company once again or you could start planetscale from its beginnings, would you still take this decision before it was big, since I feel like as if the free tier was a key part in atleast giving PlanetScale some name/fame. I can understand how you feel but I just feel like there were a lot of people who were advocates of your software, partially because of how people could test it out for free as well and those advocates were the one who were hurt the most. Personally, I wasn't involved but I would pretty bummed too if I advocate a service and it does something like this, although, I would still understand the situation.

zzmbnp 1y ago

More surprising is what a jerk the CEO of PlanetScale is. He's on Twitter being nasty at everyone and everything. The guy is toxic as hell. He posted this: "I would like to thank the haters for helping me promote the new PlanetScale $5 plan all day. Thanks guys." Scorching his reputation on Hacker News is a real 400 IQ movie for a cloud database company CEO.

crossroadsguy 1y ago

So it’s important to point out when a company still engages in such practices.

nromiun 1y ago

So? Maybe don't offer a free tier if you can't sustain it? And many other providers (like Neon, Koyeb, Supabase etc) still offer a free tier. Personally I don't like this type of bait and switch. If you can't sustain something don't offer it in the first place. Same with open source projects going closed source for money after getting free work from open source programmers.

cess11 1y ago

Many of us grew up on stuff like SDF/Freeshell and IRC and ad-supported web hosts. "Free forever" actually meant "free forever" to us, until services that used the same language to make promises ripped us off and turned us more cynical.

pjc50 1y ago

Indeed. I'm a user of Cloudflare free and Oracle(tm) Always Free(sic) services, but for hobby projects where I'm not under the illusion that they owe me anything. I think the longevity of Gmail, Youtube etc being both (a) absolutely free and (b) personally critical to many people has rather warped expectations in this regard. Take the freebie, be grateful, but don't imagine that giving no money to a corporation is going to incur any obligation from them to you.