It looks like a forward movement of Mandrill. The interesting thing, I heard just recommendation for Mandrill for a long period, many people used it. Now how Mandrill ask for few $ for the service, somehow everything changed, and it's not so good service for many users. It just shows, that offer and support free service is not the best way to do business. It would be interesting to know some stats later, how many free users moved from Mandrill bc. of this.