OpenStreetMap has had a spike in tiles usage and, as I understand, the decision among those in charge was to limit tiles usage. Ilya Zverev has written a good summary on the decision in his blog: (use Google Translate) http://shtosm.ru/all/dlya-kogo-tayly/ His main point is that OSM is not liable to provide tiles to anyone but the mappers.

OSM owes you nothing, to put it shortly. And it’s not a commercial provider to do it for a reasonable rate. That’s perfectly true. Except that this case is another step to a death spiral and makes the project end come closer.

I saw exactly this happen in an amateur community network that I used. Its approach was exactly the same and it led to an eventual death of the project. OSM resembles it in many details, decisions and explanations. The community network also was very righteous in its statements.

Noncommercial provider

(I have to clarify the state of the internet providers, to make it clear. You may omit this paragraph.) In 1999, the internet providers in the city consisted almost entirely of (audio) dial-up, that is 56Kbit top speed. The phone network was state-owned, it tried hard to jump on the DSL wagon, but only upgraded its stations by 2004. Unlimited Ethernet or DSL appeared only in 2006-7.

So, in 1997, some 5 guys in a big condo near me, tired of modem speed, connected their computers with coaxial cables and Ethernet cards to make a local network. They were very enthusiastic and made all sorts of things: bought 56K modem and an unlimited plan, installed 24/7 servers, made an internal website with lots of information, and so on. In 2000, they organized consumer cooperative and finally bought in bulk a 1Mbit Ethernet line. By 2001 there were about a 100 users, and I was in 110s when I joined it in October or November.

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