I've been with Linode for over 15 years. I have raved about how good their services etc were . I've even positively reviewed them. Then Akamai took them over. 1 - Hardware / services don't run as quickly. Reboots/ Backups take longer2 - We have had major outages (never before in 15 years)Then the kicker - the greedy buggers have decided to play fast and loose with their billing and add an 8-11.6 % increase on just one of our server prices, without telling us, and while hiding it behind changed billing practice,. We signed up for an 8Gb Linode at $48 per month. Note - $48 per month. We are normally billed on the first of the month. We also have a 4GB linode ($24) plus backups and a small bit of image storage space. (plus other Linodes under our management too) Suddenly we are getting billed mid month (15th) and on inquiring it is because we have hit some predefined limit they send a link for in their docs. In 15 years - never had a predefined limit. EVER!!Then we get billed again on 1st of the month. I noticed the amounts seemed more than I expected so I added the numbers up and found we had been charged over $50 for the $48 linode and more for the others too.and then I realised what the greedy accountants or bureaucrats or whatever money grubbing pillock had done. They charge for usage at an hourly rate of 0.072 per hour. Normally that number is bandied around as a per month hourly rate for partial monthly use of a linode if you close off your linode before the full month is complete. Note - we signed up for a $48 per month, not an over $50 per month. Here is how this new little scam works: On a 28 day month we will get charged $48.38 at this hourly rate ( 0.072 * 24 * 28) - a 0.80% increase. On a 30 day month we will get charged $51.84 at this hourly rate ( 0.072 * 24 * 30) - a 8.00% increase. On a 31 day month we will get charged $53.57 at this hourly rate ( 0.072 * 24 * 31) - a 11.60% increase. In effect what every akamai stooge who thought this up have managed to increase their charge outs by 8% - 11.6% and hide it behind mid month billings. Let me be clear - thats literally criminal. We signed a contract for $48 per month. Not $53.59 per month and if it seem like me moaning about $5.00 per month is no big deal - multiply that across the thousands of linode users and see what happens. A stealth = 9.8% increase in profits on average across months with 30 - 31 days ( which is most of them if I remember the calendar correctly. )Another piece of corporate "goodness" inflicted after taking over an excellent company. If they are being dishonest here -where else? and then I think about the outages and slowed down responses of the linodes I use. hmmmm!!!!!
