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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-25T03:43:30+00:00

This pertains to Google App Engine, using Java. (threadsafe in this scenario would be

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This pertains to Google App Engine, using Java.
(“threadsafe” in this scenario would be set to true, so please include that in your thought process.)

Which of the App Engine quotas are affected?
The goal would be to slow down some users (non-paying users), in such a way that their requests would take longer to arrive. (The time spent on the website/app is in the range of hours, per user.) So in a situation where the user is slowed down by double the wait, half of the theoretical bandwidth usage is saved, per user, since they don’t spend even more time on to compensate; they go to bed at the end of the day, in this scenario.

Specifically, my goal is for this to be more cost effective, more than anything.

Are CPU quotas affected by thread delays?
(Excuse my ignorance on this topic. I assume that such a Java thread delay doesn’t incur CPU usage itself, but I could be wrong, which is why I’m asking you guys, who are more knowledgeable.)

Any other things I should consider to be detrimental?

(Make sure to factor in that, in this scenario, the user themselves aren’t negatively impacted by the site loading slower, and that they patiently wait for the page to load. It is the type of application where the user isn’t bothered by a little bit of lag because they spend a lot of time on the site just to kill time. Hope this is understood.)

Thanks in advance for any thoughts, and thanks for at least reading my question.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Under the current billing model, your app will not scale up if your handlers take more than 1000ms on average to return a response. Deliberately adding sleep calls will slow your app down, and make it less likely to be autoscaled.

    Under the new billing model, as Chris points out, you will be charged by instance-hours, which means that although your app will scale fine, you will pay more to slow your users down.

    When most people are trying to shave milliseconds off their response times, you’re asking about ways to artificially slow requests down; this seems very odd, and likely to drive your users off. Wouldn’t you be better off serving them a page informing them they’re over-quota and inviting them to come back later (or, say, pay you)?

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