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Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18

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Re: Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18

#11

Post by freak42 »

jmaw wrote: post #4

Good callout to make sure people are aware. This change is totally fair from my perspective. I see the "always free" as "you will never pay for this for as long as you keep it" as opposed to "this will always be available, and free". People who use free services like this should generally be aware that they are likely to go away or be reduced at some point. I got hit by this with PlanetScale and had to move my stuff…

But that's not what's happening: People took the always free offer, but the offer they took ends now for them not just for new users.

Re: Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18

#14

Post by inigyou »

ajross wrote: post #8
inigyou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not limited to exactly 12 months, like our competitor's promotion. Were you expecting a massive evil corporation to keep spending $50 every month on you forever?

> Were you expecting a massive evil corporation to keep spending $50 every month on you forever? When they offer something "always"... yes? Are "always" and "forever" not synonyms? I'm not arguing about the economics or motivation, just pointing out that simple language says that they lied.

Were you expecting anything to last forever? The sun's gonna explode, you know.

Re: Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18

#17

Post by snailmailman »

I’m mostly fine with this. Their free teir was crazy generous. 24GB of ram for free is a lot. They were a very popular host for free Minecraft servers because of it.

Their communication about this change has been pretty awful. It began with a silent change to the docs a month or so back, and a lot of people worrying that they would suddenly be charged. It looks like there’s actually a date associated with the change now at least. This article mentions an email that went out? I haven’t gotten any such email. I’ve already reduced my instances to within the upcoming limit, so maybe that’s why? I don’t know.

Re: Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18

#18

Post by wang_li »

ajross wrote: post #3

So... what did "Always" mean, exactly?

I would think that it means they have an offering that you won't be charged for, not that they will offer the exact same thing perpetually. Like Red Robin has free refills on many sides doesn't mean that those sides will be something they serve forever.

Re: Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18

#20

Post by bityard »

If by "just," you mean a couple of weeks ago, yes.

I noticed the change to their documentation about two weeks ago. A couple days later, I checked my own account for something unrelated. My main instance (using 12 GB of RAM) was still up, but another that I only used for testing random things had just vanished from my account without a trace.

I get that they are well within their rights to reduce the Always Free resources (or even eliminate them entirely), but I did not get any notification that this was changing, nor that they would be terminating my instances that took the account above the Always Free limits. It would honestly have been _less_ sneaky (and potentially damaging) to simply start charging for resources above the new limit.

But, Oracle gonna Oracle I guess.

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