Call to Action on the way Google has rolled out the App Engine Pricing

[Ugorji Nwoke]

This group is an inner circle of App Engine users. We have cried hell and high water over the last 3 months since Google released plans to increase their pricing. The message we got from Google could be summarized as:

- You do not yet know how much the prices will increase, so calm down and wait. We don't expect 10X or 40X or other crazy things you guys are saying. Yes, there will be an increase, but not a ridiculous one.

- We will allow you compare the old prices with the new prices and give you time to adjust

- Please continue to trust us as you always have

That calmed us down. However, what Google has done today is extremely deceptive and underhanded. They didn't even have the decency and courtesy to give us more than 2 weeks notice to adjust after releasing the comparison, or ensure they have their runtime in place before proceeding (ie Python 2.7, Tools to request your data offline like Amazon does, more than 6 weeks discount). They basically said "to hell with them. They are not our target business anyway". 

I've put my thoughts in a blog post at http://blog.ugorji.net/2011/09/google-app-engine-new-pricing-sucks.html and don't want to reproduce the whole contents here. Please read it.

It's time we stopped shouting to ourselves and to Google who it clearly seems could care less and expect this to boil over. Let's take to twitter, facebook, google plus and blog posts - things that people outside our tight-knit community see. 

From my part, I have started the following:

• Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GoogleAppEngineNewPricingSucks/226690334046342
  
• Twitter Hashtag: #GoogleAppEngineNewPricingSucks http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23GoogleAppEngineNewPricingSucks

• Blog Post: http://blog.ugorji.net/2011/09/google-app-engine-new-pricing-sucks.html
• Google Plus Post: https://plus.google.com/115545205253432230935/posts/7oJGwFEgDgC

Please join and let's let our voices be heard. Let's all write our own blog posts about our concerns and impressions, and post links on twitter and facebook. Let's reshare our thoughts on Google Plus. That's the least we can do since Google has decided that they can pick and choose when to call on their "Do No Evil" slogan.

[Vinuth Madinur]

What google effectively wants to say is:

"If we gave you anything more than 2 weeks time, we know you'll migrate. How about coughing up some dough before you leave? You going to leave anyway. As such, GAE is not for you. You wont be missed."

It's just a helpless situation, which would require hundreds of more developer hours to either optimize differently or migrate.

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[Anders]

I believe the new price model will be reasonable fair. We will see what the actual cost will be. If Google has become too greedy we can start an open source project for a peer-to-peer search engine that will render Google Search basically obsolete as a proper punishment. He he.

[Vinuth Madinur]

Aren't you already seeing the costs?

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 9:41 PM, Anders <blab...@gmail.com> wrote:

I believe the new price model will be reasonable fair. We will see what the actual cost will be. If Google has become too greedy we can start an open source project for a peer-to-peer search engine that will render Google Search basically obsolete as a proper punishment. He he.

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[de Witte]

Instead of shouting about the billing, look at the real problem. The pricing itself is okay except for the Channel and Email API. They are high.

The instance pricing is fine, except that the scheduler is buggy, most of our instances are idle. Causing these insane rates.

[Anders]

Yes, I have seen a ten times increase. But all that was the cost for many instances running at the same time. If I can limit the number of instances the cost will be reduced significantly. On the other hand with for example only max one instance the application may become very sluggish. So I have to see what the actual performance and cost will be when the new price model kicks in in the second half of September or something like that.

It seems that instance hours are very expensive. And the price is reduced by 50%! I don't like the idea of paying for instances because Google can squeeze in a huge number of instances in each physical server, so it's a very opaque pricing.

[Ugorji Nwoke]

There's a large number of concerns I have with the new pricing. It's ridiculously high, it's shoved down our throats, the rules of engagement are being changed with extremely short notice, and obviously Google does not care about how it impacts us. We've hashed all that out before. Unfortunately, the forums are just not as public, and Google has decided that they will weather the backlash. Now blog posts, Facebook, Twitter, and other more public and mainstream forums may cause them to act fairly. 

If folks have any concerns, please let's gather them together on the Facebook page. Let it be like a pseudo-pertition.