I don't see why changing prices is a big deal. Apparently there's some pent-up frustration, but there is a real cost to keeping services online. If the price of electronic books doesn't increase over the next two years, I'll be astonished.
And in fact, there's real danger to a business in terms of how they price their product. We were early adopters of RightNow, and we still pay an absurdly low price for their product (which we host) compared to other people, all because it's grandfathered in. Now this hurts them less because we host it, but you can imagine if they had to grandfather us in at the prices they were charging when they were new, it could really hurt them.
I don't get the impression that they prepared their customer base for this. E.g. you know why you're paying "an absurdly low price" for RightNow and you should't be surprised if things change in an adverse way. E.g. I don't know anything about your and their situation, but say they grow so big they have to move to AWS and now providing service to you costs them cash money. You wouldn't be surprised if at the very least they passed that new cost of "goods" through to you.
And in fact, there's real danger to a business in terms of how they price their product. We were early adopters of RightNow, and we still pay an absurdly low price for their product (which we host) compared to other people, all because it's grandfathered in. Now this hurts them less because we host it, but you can imagine if they had to grandfather us in at the prices they were charging when they were new, it could really hurt them.