C9.io Requiring a Credit Card to Sign Up Now - WTF?

4 points by RawData 9 years ago | 6 comments

I teach Ruby on Rails video courses online, and I use c9 as the cloud development environment in all my courses. It's great because it's free, it's online, everyone has access, and everyone's screen looks the same (great for teaching purposes). Plus C9 works really well...

I don't think they used to, but now it appears that C9 requires a credit card to sign up for their free accounts. I'm guessing this is the first bone headed move Amazon is making since acquiring c9 a couple months ago?

My students are pissed. They don't want to give a credit card...some don't have one (they can buy my courses with paypal).

Come on C9! Don't be that guy!

Lordarminius 9 years ago |

I think this is one of those instances where a management decision consciously wrecks a company, but then we'll see.

Asking for a credit card for a service which is ostensibly free and risking a breach of my data (as C9 suffered a while ago) is a poor move and has been widely criticized by the c9 community. The management has so far failed to take user feedback into consideration. Lets see how that works out for them.

They should stick to a freemium model. Personally I am looking for an alternative.

detaro 9 years ago |

They even have a plan specifically for your scenario, that doesn't require credit cards, and it is damn cheap...

and remember that the alternative to "free plan with credit card as slight security against abuse" likely would have been "no free plan at all".

ivan_burazin 9 years ago |

Hi all, as the founder of codeanywhere.com I belive I may be able to offer a solution.

Our cloud IDE offers free plans and no CC required. So have a try and let me know your thoughts.

Kind regards

Lordarminius 9 years ago | |

great. will do

willstepp 9 years ago |

So you charge for your courses but expect others to provide services for free? Don't be that guy.

RawData 9 years ago | |

You miss the point...

C9 still offers their service for free...they're just asking for a credit card to verify identity or some such nonsensical thing...

And no, I don't just expect them to offer it for free...if they want to charge, that's perfectly fine. But don't say that it's free and then require a credit card...