[hncommenter13]

If I have a problem with my ISP or my car dealer, nobody bats an eye at a blog post or an online complaint about the service.

But if I'm a customer of an admired former startup to whom I pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, I'm not allowed to go public with my complaints when I--and maybe hundreds of others--have been deceived and have suffered intentionally worse service than what I was promised?

I find the "enforced positiveness/optimism" of the startup community very disheartening. The essence of engineering is honesty (preferably quantified) about capabilities and limitations of systems. In this case, a former startup owned by a public company deceived their customers and then papered over (my impression) a valid, quantitatively-documented customer complaint once it became public.

Tom should be commended for speaking out. If he's right, dozens of startups have spent far more of their precious and limited capital on excess dynos and monitoring tools that could have been better spent elsewhere. I can't imagine a better service to the startup community than making this sort of thing public.