As expected, you're seeing a bit of resistance to the obvious outcome to managing a SQL Server that is literally hammered by TONS of connections. That infrastructure is NOT cheap and the time to manage it is not free. It's unrealistic for anyone to expect this to continue indefinitely.

Since you'll filter off a lot of that traffic, the service will be even better for your remaining users. Also, you'll have cash flow now to possibly upgrade your infrastructure even further.

And frankly, this opens the door to the community to spin up another public instance. Thanks for all your work and contributions!