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PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

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Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#91

Post by bruce511 »

outlore wrote: post #78
samlambert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember. It was a very painful moment for everyone involved. I still miss the people who aren't here anymore. I am not happy that it happened but I am also I am very glad to be at a profitable company. I get to work at a company that is growing sustainably surrounded by people I admire. I love our customers and I think in the long run people will root for a company that isn't just lighting money on fire at the alt…

My apologies for sounding bitter. You stated you don't care what I think. Just wanted to say though that i've admired you and your company for a long time. I participated in user interviews so I could score one of your famous hats. I submitted copious feedback. I was an evangelist for branching workflows and recommended several colleagues to your product. I watched all the talks, interviews and devrel videos. I'm gla…

If a business does not run at a profit, it folds, and all the people there lose out.

Now, of course, the scale of the profit is worth discussing. The use of the profit is worth discussing. But in general terms some profit is necessary.

For example, I bootstraped a business from 0 to 50 people. We took no outside investment. We "paid" for the growth using profits. Our working capital, cash reserves, stock, equipment, vehicles etc, all come out of profits.

Yes, over the years, there have been things that didn't work out. People who ended up surplus to requirements. People not suited to the role they were in. Most left amicably. Some were pushed. None of that was easy but it was necessary because just keeping unproductive (or worse, divisive) people around is bad for everyone.

Running a business is hard. Firing people is hard. Comments like "people over profits" are flippant, but miss the underlying realities small businesses face all the time.

Yes, there are large tech businesses out there with bottomless pockets, who hire (and fire) by the thousands. But surely those bring hired in cohorts that big understand that a wind blows both ways.

It's not necessarily helpful though to apply your feelings about that to all the businesses that are not that.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#92

Post by samlambert »

ksec wrote: post #77

I guess this is one of the 2 or 3 things Sam talked about coming till end of year. I wonder what's the other 1 or 2. I also imagine the previous Hobby plan running on Vitess is actually more expensive to run than even this $5 dollar tier, not viable unless it is on Postgres Metal with no HA. I also wish there is a list of non hyperscaler providers with regions that are close to planetscale offering. Last time I check…

Hey ksec, you are right vitess is more expensive to run naturally. Do you host your apps in hertzer or is it a factor of cost? if you email me sam@planetscale.com i can give you free credits for either Vitess or Postgres.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#93

Post by czl »

selcuka wrote: post #48
czl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were buying flow for your sales funnel with a free plan now you want to attract users with a low tier plan. Your reputation was hurt with the first rug pull so why be surprised that users expect another rug pull from you in the future?

I think what Sam means is $5/mo is already profitable for them. Free plan wasn't.

If a free plan attracts users that can be upsold is that free plan not profitable _vs_ paying for advertising?

If such upselling is done via rug pull tactics it damages your reputation vs never having a free plan in the first place.

If a new bank offered you free or discounted banking would you move over your accounts and payments and credit cards? What if that bank has a reputation for upselling via rug pulling?

For users the cost of switching can mean that services that are free or cheap are not worth it if they are expecting a rug pull.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#94

Post by samlambert »

ianhawes wrote: post #61
radicalriddler wrote: post #57

I notice that PlanetScale has a Developer Educator position available. Has anyone sent that to Aaron Francis yet? He might be interested.

Imagine laying off one of the most genuine, friendly developer evangelists of all time.

It was sad to say goodbye to Aaron yes. I am glad he and I are on good terms again. I have immense professional respect for him.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#95

Post by samlambert »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #72
andreybaskov wrote: post #67

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.

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

we never said that

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#96

Post by samlambert »

bruce511 wrote: post #91
outlore wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies for sounding bitter. You stated you don't care what I think. Just wanted to say though that i've admired you and your company for a long time. I participated in user interviews so I could score one of your famous hats. I submitted copious feedback. I was an evangelist for branching workflows and recommended several colleagues to your product. I watched all the talks, interviews and devrel videos. I'm gla…

If a business does not run at a profit, it folds, and all the people there lose out. Now, of course, the scale of the profit is worth discussing. The use of the profit is worth discussing. But in general terms some profit is necessary. For example, I bootstraped a business from 0 to 50 people. We took no outside investment. We "paid" for the growth using profits. Our working capital, cash reserves, stock, equipment,…

I have immense respect for you building a profitable bootstrapped business. We raised venture to do this, I can't imagine bootstrapping. People are upset that I said I don't care what he thinks and maybe I was harsh but honestly people who have never tried doing this are always the ones to take shots, you basically can't care.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#97

Post by [deleted] »

samlambert wrote: post #73
outlore wrote: post #54

Remember when they shafted the free plan, laid off some good people and redesigned their website to look like some garish notepad? Pepperidge Farm remembers...

I remember. It was a very painful moment for everyone involved. I still miss the people who aren't here anymore. I am not happy that it happened but I am also I am very glad to be at a profitable company. I get to work at a company that is growing sustainably surrounded by people I admire. I love our customers and I think in the long run people will root for a company that isn't just lighting money on fire at the alt…

[deleted]

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#98

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

samlambert wrote: post #73
outlore wrote: post #54

Remember when they shafted the free plan, laid off some good people and redesigned their website to look like some garish notepad? Pepperidge Farm remembers...

I remember. It was a very painful moment for everyone involved. I still miss the people who aren't here anymore. I am not happy that it happened but I am also I am very glad to be at a profitable company. I get to work at a company that is growing sustainably surrounded by people I admire. I love our customers and I think in the long run people will root for a company that isn't just lighting money on fire at the alt…

> Either way I don't care what you remember or think.

If you took your time to write it, you do care or if you genuinely don't, then people would now take it as a challenge to make you care...

This is just not good light. not all attention is created equal. This will hurt your company and your image.

Please, try to apologize to them if possible

I thought about it as an exercise as to what I thought your should last comment should be, it took some time but here it is

Hey, its great that you remember, it means that you cared about planetscale and somehow we were forced between false growth and real harsh truth and we wanted to present the truth, sorry if it had impacted any of your services. I know maybe I can't do much about how you can feel now about me or the company but I genuinely hope no matter what solution you might use now, you succeed in it with great success .If you feel like it, maybe give us another try but hey no pressure and as always, have a nice day :)

This took some time personally, especially after the part I genuinely hope no matter what solution personally but it didn't take more than 5 minutes to draft the whole response really.

Being kind helps. Atleast that's my philosphy or I would like to present it as such, I feel as if we are more common than different and basic human kindness resonates with that.

I hope you become the company seeking people's satisfaction first and absolute profits later but maybe that's an ideal. Just be honest with a bit of kindness and humility as there would be grace in it.

Honestly, my suggestion is to create something similar to fly.io really, have a 5$ free credit system but which requires credit card when signing up. It should prevent you from spams and if need be, try to limit it and try to do some excessive bot clearing

Maybe if you feel like you can have 5000$ for free without much compensation, then have limited (maybe verified?) people join in it for free with just credit card

Have some good restrictions on free license really, and although I haven't used fly.io as even the credit card got way too much of a requirement for me personally but,I would still look into what/how they are doing/implementing it

Taking some VPN as cautions plus taking note of suspicious activities from IP etc. comes to my mind as well if you go through this route. I think that you can genuinely create a good way to move some people as well or keep a free service while restricting it heavily really

Personally I wouldn't be able to afford the 5$ thing as well for just starting it out, I mean I haven't paid for any subscription ever on internet.

I am not sure what you are going to do or how you are going to pan out and take my suggestions lightly if need be, but please improve the tones and genuinely apologize to them if possible.

I don't know much about founder mode as other commentors point it out. I just think that your comment was a little bit rude and there were ways to make it better really

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#99

Post by samlambert »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #84
andreybaskov wrote: post #67

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.

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

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.

Re: PlanetScale Offering $5 Databases

#100

Post by overfeed »

samlambert wrote: post #73
outlore wrote: post #54

Remember when they shafted the free plan, laid off some good people and redesigned their website to look like some garish notepad? Pepperidge Farm remembers...

I remember. It was a very painful moment for everyone involved. I still miss the people who aren't here anymore. I am not happy that it happened but I am also I am very glad to be at a profitable company. I get to work at a company that is growing sustainably surrounded by people I admire. I love our customers and I think in the long run people will root for a company that isn't just lighting money on fire at the alt…

> people will root for a company that isn't just lighting money on fire at the alter of fake growth.

Pray tell, why did the company adopt the "fake growth" strategy in the first place?

> Either way I don't care what you remember or think.

It's evident you do. Feeling upset is fine, but writing that down as an attempt at a mic-drop statement just makes you appear incredibly thin-skinned.

Rug-pulls. Not even once.

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