[UBP] Don’t immediately block free-tier users with heavy prebuild usage when UBP is enabled

[jldec]

Users with a lot of prebuild usage should not be blocked immediately when we turn on UBP.

Taking the following steps to address this:

• Epic: Require a Gitpod project for prebuilds  #9898
• Remove deprecated '#prebuild/' context URL prefix #4353
• Make the 'Run Prebuild' button more consistent #15144

Earlier suggestions

• Enabling UBP should reset the free tier cost center to 500 fresh credits even if past usage was higher
• Users with high prebuild usage should see a warning notification when they have used 400/500 credits

Related to #9898

See RFC (internal) for more details

[jldec]

Clarification required - Let look at usage data to see how many cases like this are expected.

[svenefftinge]

Users with high prebuild usage should see a warning notification when they have used 400/500 credits

I'd prefer to generalize this warning to all kinds of low credits. We could email people on low credits.

[jankeromnes]

Users with a lot of prebuild usage should not be blocked immediately when we turn on UBP.

To clarify, why shouldn't they get blocked immediately? (I.e. why is that problematic?)

My thinking is:

• Some users may have an extraordinarily heavy prebuild usage, but this isn't intentional
• When we switch to usage-based GA, they notice this heavy usage (i.e. they get blocked, see a notification, check out their usage, see what is causing the excessive usage)
• Armed with this knowledge, these users can then fix their excessive prebuilds (e.g. by deleting their unused projects, or restricting prebuilds to only the main branch, something like that)
• Problem solved ✅ ?

• Users with high prebuild usage should see a warning notification when they have used 400/500 credits

We already have this, right?

gitpod/components/server/ee/src/workspace/gitpod-server-impl.ts

Lines 2353 to 2355 in 304851d

	} else if (limit.almostReached) {
	result.unshift(`You have reached 80% or more of your usage limit.`);
	}

We could email people on low credits.

This sounds like an excellent additional feature request. 👍

[jldec]

Clarified OP - thanks @jankeromnes, I think your fixes are going to do a lot to help here.