To be fair, it's unusual for a product at this scale to go from free to paid. It's also unusual for it to happen to a product which already went from paid to free once before.
I don't agree with the parent that it's a bait-and-switch, but I also don't think what's happening is an emotional response. For many people and companies, clusters being free have been a feature of Google Cloud. Making it a paid feature completely changes the dynamic.
It's an unexpected announcement that will further sour sentiment about Google as a company. It's really hard to build trust in this industry, and it's really easy lose it. Google has this thing about announcing changes that blow up negatively on HN, and could learn from this.
(For the record, I'm a big fan of Kubernetes, and I like GKE a lot.)
I don't agree with the parent that it's a bait-and-switch, but I also don't think what's happening is an emotional response. For many people and companies, clusters being free have been a feature of Google Cloud. Making it a paid feature completely changes the dynamic.
It's an unexpected announcement that will further sour sentiment about Google as a company. It's really hard to build trust in this industry, and it's really easy lose it. Google has this thing about announcing changes that blow up negatively on HN, and could learn from this.
(For the record, I'm a big fan of Kubernetes, and I like GKE a lot.)