[jiffyjeff]

Wow, what a day... I had an ear-to-ear grin this morning when I learned of support for Go on App Engine. I'm releasing my 3rd GAE app this week (Python) and have big plans to dive into what would've been my 4th and 5th...

Now I've just finished reading the announcements about the road ahead for pricing and support, and I'm having hard time trying not to be upset...

y = mx + b

The big selling point of GAE for me was minimizing the cost of 'b'... I don't mind paying a little extra 'm' if it allows me to avoid 'b'.

For billing-enabled apps, it appears the smooth real-time transition between free and paid will no longer be supported. Now there will be a fixed cost associated with every app every month. Gone is my fantasy of launching great little apps and marketing them until one of them happens to hit the jackpot (possibly by pointing out another great idea -- "the next big thing").

This completely changes the dynamic of GAE for me. Now, If I'm going to support an app, it's going to cost me money whether it's used or not.

$9 per app per month doesn't sound like much for scalable hosting, but sometimes the best ideas stem from little baby ideas, and little baby ideas are prematurely eliminated from consideration if it costs $9 a month to host them.

[stephth]

Why can't you start with a free app and later upgrade to paid, if you need to?