Increased Enhanced quota - Page 9

nmangalath · 22 Oct 2007, 10:34 AM

No amount of arithmetic (about the price of petrol or disk space) is going to convince anyone to change their opinion abut this price raise by FM. It is simply a question whether you find FM worthwhile at this price. I do and I just renewed my account till 2012.

Naru

FMRocks · 22 Oct 2007, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thrope

The problem is for people like me I feel a bit left out, full account fits my needs pretty well, but I could do with a bit more space and my own domain. Enhanced account is way more than I need or could really justify the expense of.

This is a valid enough point. But not every email service can serve the needs or wants of every email user. One of the things I appreciate about FM is the simplicity of its pricing structure. Too many options and too many pricing points would confuse and scare away potential new users.

Quote:

And look at gmail - there I can have my own domain, as many 2GB mailboxes as I want all for free! This is the market you have to operate in now - time to get your act together.

Gmail and Fasmail.FM hardly operate in the same market. Google is a big player, a company that makes money by selling ads - and at that they are geniuses. Every new email in a Gmail account is an opportunity for Google's engines to target ads better to you, making Google even more lucrative to advertisers, who will pay for it. Gmail isn't expanding or offering all these goodies on an altruistic basis. I am by no means saying that that's a bad thing. I'm actually a fan of Google. But FM provides something different: an ad-free service, customization and sieve scripts, IMAP access, and a multitude of email features. FM serves much more of a niche market than does Gmail, and that will continue to be the case.

FMRocks · 22 Oct 2007, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Velo

I just wonder for how many enhanced users the current 2 GB didn't suffice. If one needs more space, one can buy more - now we all need to pay for extra storage, even if we don't need it.

I'm not saying that Fastmail is not worth $50 per year. It's just not nice that we now are all "forced" to pay for extra storage.

I don't know that that's fair to say. Following this logic, ANYONE who is currently an Enhanced user and is using less than 2GB of storage is being "forced" to pay the price for a 2GB account (currently $40 a year). The price cannot be determined on a unit-by-unit basis. The account provides what it provides, and the price is what it is.

**Sherry** · 22 Oct 2007, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Velo

I'm not saying that Fastmail is not worth $50 per year. It's just not nice that we now are all "forced" to pay for extra storage.

I'm not saying it is so but only that it is possible but maybe FM wanted/needed to raise their price but waited until they had the equipment/means to increase storage so as to offer something to go with the price increase? After all, I don't believe they have ever increased their price in all the years they offered the Enhanced accounts? If that is what may have happened then it was a normal price increase and the storage an extra offering to go with it??? Again, just a guess...

Sherry

MikeL · 22 Oct 2007, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherry

I'm not saying it is so but only that it is possible but maybe FM wanted/needed to raise their price but waited until they had the equipment/means to increase storage so as to offer something to go with the price increase? After all, I don't believe they have ever increased their price in all the years they offered the Enhanced accounts? If that is what may have happened then it was a normal price increase and the storage an extra offering to go with it??? Again, just a guess...

Sherry

I would concur with that guess. I see the extra storage as a sweetener for a price increase that probably would have happened anyway, not as a justification for it. If I were in a position to do so, I'd go ahead and renew for 5 additional years to lock in the lower price, but I can't right now, so I'll live with the increase (I just renewed for 1 year, so I have that long before I have to worry about it). I have an Enhanced account for other reasons (using it with my own domain, for one); the storage is nice, but if I really felt I needed it, I'd have bought some extra a while ago. It just means I don't have to be as proactive about pruning my archives.

Too bad I can't donate some of my extra storage to my wife, who has a Full account and really needs to manage her mailbox better....

-Mike

hadaso · 22 Oct 2007, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeL

... Too bad I can't donate some of my extra storage to my wife, who has a Full account and really needs to manage her mailbox better....

You can probably ask to have some of your folders shared with her and then she can store some of her mail on your quota (though bandwidth would still be charged to her, I believe). Currently this can be done only by asking support to set it manually, but probably in the near future business accounts would allow user control of folder sharing.

<speculation>Probably the price change discussed here has more to do with preparation to launch business accounts than with the cost of a bit more storage. Not directly but in that having to decide about pricing of business accounts forced FastMail owners to think about pricing of other account levels, something that previously could have been indefinitely postponed in favor of things that are more fun to do, such as programming...</speculation>.

Edward Velo · 22 Oct 2007, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FMRocks

I don't know that that's fair to say. Following this logic, ANYONE who is currently an Enhanced user and is using less than 2GB of storage is being "forced" to pay the price for a 2GB account (currently $40 a year).

When one signs up, one has the choice. But now we are forced to buy extra storage, to keep to same functionality that we are used to.

If a price raise was necessary to keep their business running - I could understand that (after all, everything is getting more expensive in life, and Fastmail is offering a good serivce). But in this case price raise is meant for extra storage that we are forced to take.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FMRocks

The price cannot be determined on a unit-by-unit basis.

They have such a system though: $24,95 per extra 100 MB.

placebo · 22 Oct 2007, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Velo

But in this case price raise is meant for extra storage that we are forced to take.

I think hadaso is right in his speculation that the increase in price and the increase in storage are coincidental and not causal and are in preparation for the introduction of the family and small-business accounts.

Edward Velo · 22 Oct 2007, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by placebo

I think hadaso is right in his speculation that the increase in price and the increase in storage are coincidental, and not causal and are in preparation for the introduction of the family and small-business accounts.

In the first post of this thread, Rob stated:

Quote:

Originally Posted by robmueller

As noted by others, there's been an increase to the Enhanced quota. The email quota is now 6G and the file quota is now 2G.
[...]
Unfortunately there will be an increased cost with this.

And although English is not my native language, I believe this means that the extra cost is for the extra space.

ChinaLamb · 22 Oct 2007, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Velo

And although English is not my native language, I believe this means that the extra cost is for the extra space.

You all are assuming that the price is for storage only. I think that Fastmail was planning a price increase and gave extra storage to make the price increase more worth the while. A teaspoon of sugar helps the medicine go down. I in no way see the storage as the reason for the price increase - that would be putting the cart before the horse.

You cannot separate the storage issue from the rest of the product. A lot has happened at Fastmail over the last two years.

Now that Fastmail has shown that they are a much more reliable email system - lots of redundancy, etc. - I think that the price increase is worth it.

If fastmail had asked for a price increase last year, after some of their problems in 2006, that would have been a slap in the face to their customers. They fixed their problems (which cost them a lot of dough), and the product is now much more sound.

This is a more robust email system today than it was two years ago. It is a significantly more complex and expensive system to maintain. As such, storage is probably the least of the variables in the price hike.

People will, however, continue to harp on this issue though, as the only "Visible" change is the storage.

As I suggested before - a great reason to roll out the new interface before the price increase takes effect.

/cl

ankupan · 22 Oct 2007, 07:31 PM

Completely agree with statement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

You all are assuming that the price is for storage only. I think that Fastmail was planning a price increase and gave extra storage to make the price increase more worth the while. A teaspoon of sugar helps the medicine go down. I in no way see the storage as the reason for the price increase - that would be putting the cart before the horse.

You cannot separate the storage issue from the rest of the product. A lot has happened at Fastmail over the last two years.

Now that Fastmail has shown that they are a much more reliable email system - lots of redundancy, etc. - I think that the price increase is worth it.

If fastmail had asked for a price increase last year, after some of their problems in 2006, that would have been a slap in the face to their customers. They fixed their problems (which cost them a lot of dough), and the product is now much more sound.

This is a more robust email system today than it was two years ago. It is a significantly more complex and expensive system to maintain. As such, storage is probably the least of the variables in the price hike.

People will, however, continue to harp on this issue though, as the only "Visible" change is the storage.

As I suggested before - a great reason to roll out the new interface before the price increase takes effect.

/cl

thrope · 22 Oct 2007, 07:34 PM

Just to put the cost of storage in perspective with the rest of the market.

As a full account user, I now have 100MB of space (great!). But if I wanted to upgrade that to 1GB of file space it would cost me 9 * 24.95 = $224.55

At bingodisk.com I can buy 10GB of WebDAV storage, so as far as I can tell the service is directly comparable, for $19 a year, so that works out as $1.90/gb/year.

So I would have to use my fastmail storage for 100 years before the cost was even the same order of magnitude as other competitors.

Of course I know people are going to chime in that fastmail do email not storage etc. and cant compete with these other people dedicated just to that. Of course I appreciate that but I just want to highlight the enormous gulf between fastmail world, where you still pay for 100's of MB with 10's of $'s and the rest of the internet, where storage space is now measured by the GB.

Edward Velo · 22 Oct 2007, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

You all are assuming that the price is for storage only

We are not assuming this, Rob actually wrote it (see my quote earlier).

But of course you are probably right - it's just that they should have told us the real reason. I know it's never easy to announce a price raise, but this is a tread that they started "Increased Enhanced quota" where they mention that "Unfortunately there will be an increased cost with this". Why not start a thread "Increased Enhanced costs" and then mention "fortunately there will be an increased quota with this". Which is better marketing?

ChinaLamb · 22 Oct 2007, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Velo

We are not assuming this, Rob actually wrote it (see my quote earlier).

Rob has done an amazing job with Fastmail. I also think he does a great job with Tech-Support - very responsive - no problem I have ever had has ever gone more than a few hours without being fixed.

That being said, I don't think that marketing is necessarily their strong-suit. There is obviously interrelatedness between the price and the storage, but I don't think they intended to say that the storage is the only reason for the price increase.

Edward Velo · 22 Oct 2007, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChinaLamb

Rob has done an amazing job with Fastmail. I also think he does a great job with Tech-Support - very responsive - no problem I have ever had has ever gone more than a few hours without being fixed.

In case anyone is doubting... I have the same opinion, and believe that Rob is doing an absolutely amazing job at Fastmail (+ in this forum).

22 Oct 2007, 10:34 AM	#121
nmangalath Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Australia Posts: 88	No amount of arithmetic (about the price of petrol or disk space) is going to convince anyone to change their opinion abut this price raise by FM. It is simply a question whether you find FM worthwhile at this price. I do and I just renewed my account till 2012. Naru

22 Oct 2007, 07:34 PM	#132
thrope Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 45	Just to put the cost of storage in perspective with the rest of the market. As a full account user, I now have 100MB of space (great!). But if I wanted to upgrade that to 1GB of file space it would cost me 9 * 24.95 = $224.55 At bingodisk.com I can buy 10GB of WebDAV storage, so as far as I can tell the service is directly comparable, for $19 a year, so that works out as $1.90/gb/year. So I would have to use my fastmail storage for 100 years before the cost was even the same order of magnitude as other competitors. Of course I know people are going to chime in that fastmail do email not storage etc. and cant compete with these other people dedicated just to that. Of course I appreciate that but I just want to highlight the enormous gulf between fastmail world, where you still pay for 100's of MB with 10's of $'s and the rest of the internet, where storage space is now measured by the GB.