[cinbun8]

> Earlier this year, Google informed us that they were going to begin charging for reCAPTCHA

So it came down to cost.

> Over the years, the privacy and blocking concerns were enough to cause us to think about switching from reCAPTCHA. But, like most technology companies, it was difficult to prioritize removing something that was largely working instead of brand new features and functionality for our customers.

I like that they're upfront about this. In most companies / teams of this size, these issues are always swept under the carpet until something ugly forces you to clean up at a later point in time. It's just unavoidable.