{"id":18015,"date":"2017-05-17T16:11:12","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T20:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=18015"},"modified":"2017-05-17T16:11:12","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T20:11:12","slug":"fastmail-lifetime-member-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/17\/fastmail-lifetime-member-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"FastMail “Lifetime” Member Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

brong<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

FYI, we’re finally closing off guest and member accounts entirely. […] We have already not allowed new signups at those service levels for quite some time. We are offering very generous discounts for upgrades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

In 2002<\/a>, the member account promised a lifetime<\/a> mail account for a one-time $14.95 fee.<\/p>\n\n

David<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The member accounts were introduced at a critical time in Fastmail’s development, when they needed serious funding (when they first went paid).<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

That Fastmail have honored their commitment (to keep these accounts valid, over all these years) I consider impeccable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Now they are reneging on that deal, although obviously anyone who signed up 15 years ago got a tremendous value. I don’t really understand why FastMail is doing this, since it seems like the 16 MB storage quota on the old plan would be enough to entice most users to upgrade. Anyone remaining wouldn’t drain their resources much—except perhaps for customer support. Is it really worth sullying their reputation? If the situation is so dire that they’ll go out of business if they keep their word, then as a satisfied non-lifetime customer I’m glad they’re not going down in flames to prove a point. On the other hand, it is worrying that either they’re simply choosing not to honor their commitment or that the business I’m relying on is that close to collapse.<\/p>\n\n

The bottom line: customers should never count on anything actually being lifetime, businesses should only offer such plans as a last resort, and anyone who really cares about their e-mail address should get their own domain.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

brong (via Hacker News): FYI, we’re finally closing off guest and member accounts entirely. […] We have already not allowed new signups at those service levels for quite some time. We are offering very generous discounts for upgrades. In 2002, the member account promised a lifetime mail account for a one-time $14.95 fee. David: The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[101,150,596],"class_list":["post-18015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-business","tag-email","tag-fastmail"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18016,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18015\/revisions\/18016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}