One year ago today Heroku changed their pricing for what had previously been a free tier. It went to $7 a month. Doesn't sound like much, right? But for the year before that I had been creating all sorts of little apps to do little things, and with each one at $7, the bill would have been hundreds of dollars a month. Today the same work is being done, all of it, on a $20 a month server at Linode.

At the time I thought Heroku had a great idea. I was puzzled by the economics, but I know how much they must spend on facilities and salaries, and figured they thought this was a good long-term investment. A way to build relationships (and lock-in) with developers who were smart enough to adapt to their radical idea for software modules. Maybe they still are, and that was just a detour. But I got off their bus and was reminded never to invest in platforms you can't quickly and easily migrate off. The most expensive part of the transition was the time it took away from work I wanted to do.

I was surprised when this post showed up in my Memories on Facebook and it was only one year ago. Feels like much longer.