Take Away My Free Privileges? How Dare They!

My comments are down because, apparently, SquawkBox has decided to charge me money to continue the account. I don't recall their having notified me of this possibility when I signed up -- otherwise, I might have chosen a different comments manager. Anyway, looks like they'll charge me 14 British pounds, which I'm guessing is between $20 and $25, for a year's worth of service. Anyone know if that's good? Is there another free service out there that won't suddenly demand that I upgrade? Your answers to these questions will, of course, have to be emailed to me since, um, my comments box is down.