[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
b.j. Actually yours is exactly my point of view and I think that it's the point of many people. On Feb 26, 5:34 am, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: Agreed. As I said, Shame on me. On Feb 25, 10:27 pm, Josh Cronemeyer joshuacroneme...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not saying you shouldn't be complainin, because lots of us were surprised by the new official quota numbers and the new accounting, but I will say that you certainly undertook a big risk by investing in a technology as new and raw as app engine. Given the limitations and concerns in your email I wouldn't have recommended you to set sail with the first group of settlers to the far shores of google's nacent cloud computing offering. Maybe you should have held off to see if we all got swallowed up by sea monsters. Good luck! On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:12 PM, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
Here's my super freaky logic; one day, I said to myself: Gmail is free, and it is AWESOME. There was quiet in my mind for several seconds... Then I surmised: Maybe Google App Engine will do for web hosting what Gmail did for email... it will be AWESOME! I thought to myself... I must be a genius... I will make a website right now to capitalize on my mental momentum! Then I made one. It's www.bookdope.com , I'd appreciate it if you go to it. That would be nice. I would enjoy seeing your visit on Google Analytics (which is also like totally free dude). Unlike this guy's website, theoretically my website has a way to make money. It has sweet AdSense on the left, and I'm an affiliate with Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Better World Books, OverStock, and Buy.com. Well, actually I do Better World Books for free because I love them so much. Sure. I haven't made a dime. I'm still like $40 in the hole from buying this sweet bookdope domain name. Actually, finding it available was all the motivation I needed -- it just rolls off your tongue. It's dope beyond measure. When Network Solutions said BOOKDOPE.COM is available, I knew I was destined to make a book site, even if there's like a million of them already out there. So what I'm getting at (even thought it's probably difficult to tell) is that you have to be able to monetize your application or you'll end up having to take it down (unless you're just feeling very generous). I've got a year to make back my $40. I don't know if I'm going to make it, but learning App Engine has been super fun for me, so I'll chalk it up as a pretty good deal. Okay. That's all from me. Please don't give me horrible ratings for this post. I know that some people don't find my humor funny at all. Thanks, Dale --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
Nice site ;) - Hope you make out something from it NickMilon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
I could make a pretty good guess as to why it happened. Google's major income is from advertising, and while they're not going broke any time soon, the amount of money coming in from their advertising has dropped significantly, and so things they could have done as loss leaders to get more advertising dollars now are weighing more on the budget, so they needed to lower the payment bar on this service. I'm sure they set the initial quotas with best intentions, but crunching some numbers, found that it was not going to be profitable. However, as with Gmail service, where the disk space available just keeps growing and growing, I'd be willing to bet that as AppEngine matures, we might see some new features and/or changes in quotas to make it even more appealing than it was in the pre-quota-change days. That having been said, there may be other reasons for the change. when they set the initial quotas, they did it based on a light- processing app getting, IIRC, 5 million hits per month. That number hasn't changed. It could very well be that when they set the quotas, they were thinking of the 5 million hits per month and it turns out that with proper accounting in place, what they were offering was enough for 50 or 500 million. I understand your frustration. I do. And they certainly could have handled this better so that it wouldn't feel like a bait-and-switch. But at the end of the day, the amount of free service they are offering is pretty substantial and for every case like yours I'd bet there are hundreds of people who are going to be able to start a business and get it profitable before they have to pay a dime. If this is for a non-profit organization, it still isn't the end of the world. I'm sure that the organization has grant writers who could get a $1,000/year grant to pay for the hosting without a problem, if it's going to help them do their good works. Good luck; I hope that the optimizations aren't too difficult, and that you can find some way to stay under those quotas. Keep the community posted! On Feb 24, 6:12 pm, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
Why not try AppEngine Patch, you get the best of both gae and django. -- www.MobiTheWeb.com Let's share the best mobile web experience. On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 4:51 PM, Bennomatic readyass...@gmail.com wrote: I could make a pretty good guess as to why it happened. Google's major income is from advertising, and while they're not going broke any time soon, the amount of money coming in from their advertising has dropped significantly, and so things they could have done as loss leaders to get more advertising dollars now are weighing more on the budget, so they needed to lower the payment bar on this service. I'm sure they set the initial quotas with best intentions, but crunching some numbers, found that it was not going to be profitable. However, as with Gmail service, where the disk space available just keeps growing and growing, I'd be willing to bet that as AppEngine matures, we might see some new features and/or changes in quotas to make it even more appealing than it was in the pre-quota-change days. That having been said, there may be other reasons for the change. when they set the initial quotas, they did it based on a light- processing app getting, IIRC, 5 million hits per month. That number hasn't changed. It could very well be that when they set the quotas, they were thinking of the 5 million hits per month and it turns out that with proper accounting in place, what they were offering was enough for 50 or 500 million. I understand your frustration. I do. And they certainly could have handled this better so that it wouldn't feel like a bait-and-switch. But at the end of the day, the amount of free service they are offering is pretty substantial and for every case like yours I'd bet there are hundreds of people who are going to be able to start a business and get it profitable before they have to pay a dime. If this is for a non-profit organization, it still isn't the end of the world. I'm sure that the organization has grant writers who could get a $1,000/year grant to pay for the hosting without a problem, if it's going to help them do their good works. Good luck; I hope that the optimizations aren't too difficult, and that you can find some way to stay under those quotas. Keep the community posted! On Feb 24, 6:12 pm, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
I am somewhat annoyed they did not start off with the smaller quotas but it can't be helped at this point. If App Engine doesn't become profitable Google corporate will shut it down and then we will all be hosed. On Feb 24, 9:12 pm, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
However, along with many performance improvements, we have learned that we were overly conservative with our initial free quota estimates. Therefore, 90 days after February 24th, 2009, we will be reducing the free quota resources. Bait and Switch. I guess it is legal since all you invested was time. Ethical? On Feb 25, 10:11 am, Brandon Thomson gra...@gmail.com wrote: I am somewhat annoyed they did not start off with the smaller quotas but it can't be helped at this point. If App Engine doesn't become profitable Google corporate will shut it down and then we will all be hosed. On Feb 24, 9:12 pm, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
B.J. wrote: By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? If you are already at the CPU limits, you either have a very processing-intensive app, or a very popular app. (The dashboard has never shown anything but 0% for my app.) If it's processor intensive, then you have a problem - processing cost money, no matter whether you do it on your own server, or someone elses. You need to rewrite (I know you don't want to hear that!) in C, and find a platform that lets you do that. If your app is popular, then stick an ad on the top of it and you'll cover your costs and more. My feeling is that many people see GAE as free/cheap hosting. It can be, but it's real power is as a application platform that allows developers to take apps to market without a sysadmin - you just don't need to worry about clustering databases, DOS attacks, firewalls, patching the OS... Just think about how much a good night's sleep is worth to you. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
I agree except for the part about DOS attacks. As far as I can tell they will just cost you a lot of money unless you actively detect and block them, and even then there could be cost involved. On Feb 25, 4:24 pm, Greg g.fawc...@gmail.com wrote: My feeling is that many people see GAE as free/cheap hosting. It can be, but it's real power is as a application platform that allows developers to take apps to market without a sysadmin - you just don't need to worry about clustering databases, DOS attacks, firewalls, patching the OS... Just think about how much a good night's sleep is worth to you. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
The last official word on DOS attacks, from Marzia Niccolai, back in September last year: On the broader issue of denial-of-service attacks, these are an unfortunate reality in the web world. While we don't currently offer applications any specific protections against attacks of this nature, this is something we're interested in looking into for the future. In the near-term, when we begin allowing developers to purchase computing resources beyond our free limits, we will provide a mechanism for reimbursement in the event of a DOS attack. Now that the billing service is here, it might be good to get any update on that. More directly on topic, I agree the bait-and-switch is a bit disappointing. On Feb 25, 10:13 pm, Brandon Thomson gra...@gmail.com wrote: I agree except for the part about DOS attacks. As far as I can tell they will just cost you a lot of money unless you actively detect and block them, and even then there could be cost involved. On Feb 25, 4:24 pm, Greg g.fawc...@gmail.com wrote: My feeling is that many people see GAE as free/cheap hosting. It can be, but it's real power is as a application platform that allows developers to take apps to market without a sysadmin - you just don't need to worry about clustering databases, DOS attacks, firewalls, patching the OS... Just think about how much a good night's sleep is worth to you. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
I'm not saying you shouldn't be complainin, because lots of us were surprised by the new official quota numbers and the new accounting, but I will say that you certainly undertook a big risk by investing in a technology as new and raw as app engine. Given the limitations and concerns in your email I wouldn't have recommended you to set sail with the first group of settlers to the far shores of google's nacent cloud computing offering. Maybe you should have held off to see if we all got swallowed up by sea monsters. Good luck! On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:12 PM, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[google-appengine] Re: Disappointed with free quota changes (probably not surprising)
Agreed. As I said, Shame on me. On Feb 25, 10:27 pm, Josh Cronemeyer joshuacroneme...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not saying you shouldn't be complainin, because lots of us were surprised by the new official quota numbers and the new accounting, but I will say that you certainly undertook a big risk by investing in a technology as new and raw as app engine. Given the limitations and concerns in your email I wouldn't have recommended you to set sail with the first group of settlers to the far shores of google's nacent cloud computing offering. Maybe you should have held off to see if we all got swallowed up by sea monsters. Good luck! On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:12 PM, B.J. bjp...@gmail.com wrote: I don't know that I have ever whined at an organization like Google for trying to make money. That's changing with this message. By my calculations, it could cost me $1000 over the next year to host my app that I had anticipated being hosted under the quotas. It may cost me nothing right now our usage is just under the daily CPU limits. If the traffic doesn't grow, no problem But whose goal is it for an app not to get more usage? My only real gripe is that App Engine caused me to invest a lot of effort in shoe-horning my app into the Google Way. I did that with the understanding that the trade-off was a certain amount of free hosting. Was that a promise? Of course not. Is Google under any obligation to meet my expectation? No. However, as I attempt to further optimize the application in an effort to not exceed limits, the future of the application is now in question. This is not a profit deal. I gave away my time in an effort to help an organization. Had I known this change was coming, I probably would have chosen a different solution. Because of the vendor lock-in of App Engine, the end result of all this may be simply turning the app off and letting the organization do without. (or find someone else to help them out.) Better that than hit daily free limits or find money out of someone's pocket. Look $1000/year is not a big deal for world-class hosting. I get it. I also understand that the free quotas are only there to get people hooked such as it were. I guess I wish had listened to those who said, Don't do App Engine. They'll lock you in and change the deal. It's not portable enough. Shame on me, I guess. And before people chime in with all the, You could always move it to..., or If you had just written it this way... or It's a business, of course they're trying to get you to go over the limits.. please don't. This is just a note to let the people at Google know there is a very real cost to changing the deal on people. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Google App Engine group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
