I’m not surprised by PlanetScale’s decision to give up their free-tier services.
They seem to have finally figured out that their customer acquisition cost can’t be offset as most conversions aren’t really lucrative.
This is a move that most infra as a service providers are embracing. From my experience, you can barely cover the expenses with the lower-tier paid plans; and as a consequence getting free tiers to turn a profit is quite a long shot.