>Perhaps I have selective memory, but I've never seen Linode lower prices, they just keep upping the specs on the lowest tier.
Yes, exactly. I'm saying that is the standard way to do it in the VPS market, in part because until D.O. most of us were self-funding, and it's way easier to pay for double the compute resources than to deal with a 50% cut in revenue.
In the "cloud" market where amazon is, the standard way to do it is to directly lower prices.
It reminds me of something I learned while working for Comcast years ago - never lower prices, just keep adding "value".