Are Intel/Altera dropping mysupport?

First point to note: Altera never used to properly interact with this forum. They left it to end users to help other end users. The same with RocketBoards - it was a way they could let other people provide support without providing anything themselves, and put it at arm's length. Intel are now providing "official" support bods on this forum it seems, but I dont think they actually have control of it. None of the moderators I know of (myself included) work for altera, or have ever worked for them. I have not seen anyone from altera/intel take control of this forum. The "official" support even had posts needing approval at the start as they had so few posts, and people have complained about the quality of advice these people give. But nothing seems to be being done, so I wonder if they dont actually have admin access to the board.

I think Intel are just consolidating all their services. Where Altera may have provided support to all in the past, Intel now appear to only to provide it to those that pay. For the right price any support can be had. This is the same for any company. There just isnt enough volume/profit in one off boards at universities. But if you buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of chips every year, you'll get an FAE hotline.