If they ramped that $5/month to $20/month after X months, I would keep paying it. Digital Ocean is a fantastic deal, everything I've tried straightforwardly works, and the fact that I can't accidentally spend money as I experiment is a real boon.
Are you absolutely sure about that? There are several other services at $20/month that would offer a much more compelling value proposition compared to Digital Ocean's lowest-tier droplet.
I would definitely have signed up for a competitor if DO droplets cost 400% what they do now. As other commenters have said, this space is a brutal race to the bottom in pricing. DO is great, I might pay 50% more for their current services, but not 300% more.
Yes. Digital Ocean got me in the door for $5, but thus far has they have done everything I needed it to do, with clear documentation for how everything works, and no nasty surprises.
As someone doing proofs-of-concept and experimental work, the resource I'm trying to conserve is my own time, and Digital Ocean's value proposition on that is great. Everything works really straightforwardly and I can concentrate on my own code.
I wouldn't suggest Digital Ocean change their high-volume pricing, but the experience they provide to the small-scale user is worth a premium.
Yes, this. I was paying $24/mon after the backup service for something that basically just proved that I owned a domain. For years, using basically just 1 IP address.
