It's a project/business that I've suggested a few times on the mailing lists and I'm truly surprised it's taken this long for someone to start one up. I'll be interested to see how/if the price points change over time.
The pro tier is approximately equivalent to <= 5 hours of developer time per month. At a minimum it gives useful information to developers trying to communicate the cost of delay to management. I think my org may have opted just to pay at one stage, considering the migration from 1.8 to 1.11 was measured in weeks not days.