I'm sure there was massive abuse. All you needed was a script that regularly pings (well HTTP request) your dyno and it would never suspend. The next best alternative would have been free trial period. I have a friend who does Wordpress hosting and the stories I hear about their abuse cases on the free tier are scary.
Heroku's free dynos still serve their purpose and are good enough for prototyping, testing and (during office hours) staging.
You can purchase an SSL certificate individually and install it manually on your Heroku server. I bought my comodo certificate from ssl2buy.com only at $10, they provide free installation support.
I'm sure there was massive abuse. All you needed was a script that regularly pings (well HTTP request) your dyno and it would never suspend. The next best alternative would have been free trial period. I have a friend who does Wordpress hosting and the stories I hear about their abuse cases on the free tier are scary.
Heroku's free dynos still serve their purpose and are good enough for prototyping, testing and (during office hours) staging.
In my opinion it was the right decision.
(Charging $20/month for hosting an existing SSL certificate is too expensive though. https://addons.heroku.com/ssl)