I have used the free Pingdom service for nearly 9 years to monitor the health of this site. Over the years it has been a helpful service and at times they would add even more useful features.
Then came 2014 when SolarWinds, a public-then-private-then-public company catering to businesses with their analytics products and services, acquired Pingdom. The writing was on wall. Soon the free tier monitoring service started to lose features and it became less and less useful over time.
Today came the final nail in the coffin, Pingdom will be ending the free service next month. Can't say it was unexpected. I can understand the company's position not to bother with small-time operators such as this site who want a free service. I can only imagine the company meeting where the termination decision was made with the boss' opening kickoff line, "We've had enough of these leeches, let's cut these parasites loose."
Instead Pingdom opted for an obvious self-serving email masquerading as a customer-serving initiative. I have no expectation of these companies providing free services to users, but they should try to be a bit more honest in their messages instead of this opener, dripping with insincerity.
They could have simply said that they'd want to get paid for the services they provide and leave it at that. As I deleted my account with Pingdom today, I felt some gratitude for the years of free monitoring. Then I promptly migrated to another company, StatusCake, which provides a similar web monitoring service. Yes, it is free, at least for now.
Must admit that it wasn't a sad goodbye though. My philosophy is, never get too attached to anything to let it go.
Give a few Sats