Rui Carmo
As a former Linode customer (at a personal level) and a former Akamai contract manager (way back in the before times), I understand that Akamai execs may have thought killing the Linode brand would help bring their compute services upmarket, but very strongly believe this was the stupidest thing they could do.
Linode’s success and brand name came from reliable, cost-effective servers managed by knowledgeable people, and everything I know about Akamai at a personal level these days is the exact opposite - it is neither seen as competitive nor effective (although I will grant that things might have changed).
They might pander to IT execs and decision makers, but engineers and tech people matter a lot in choosing this kind of services, so I’m betting this will be a net loss.