Alternatives to Fastmail due to interface change?

[joe_devore]

uughh...

so today is the 29th FINAL DAY till the END of all we hold dear and true


Its
"6:22am (EST)(US East Coast) (Thursday, June 29, 2017)" (Where I am)
"8:20pm (AEST)(Australia)(Thursday, June 29, 2017)" (Where FastMail is)

So exactly WHEN WILL THEY PULL THE PLUG..
as Australia is a day ahead technically! x(

[Bamb0]

Originally Posted by PON

The current interface is slower.....

Yes its garbage and they think its better cause ITS EASIER TO MAINTAIN... Total rubbish.......

[walesrob]

Originally Posted by joe_devore

uughh...

so today is the 29th FINAL DAY till the END of all we hold dear and true


Its
"6:22am (EST)(US East Coast) (Thursday, June 29, 2017)" (Where I am)
"8:20pm (AEST)(Australia)(Thursday, June 29, 2017)" (Where FastMail is)

So exactly WHEN WILL THEY PULL THE PLUG..
as Australia is a day ahead technically! x(

What a shame we can't pull the plug on YOU

Have a nice day Buster.

[joe_devore]

Originally Posted by walesrob

What a shame we can't pull the plug on YOU

Have a nice day Buster.

LOL all righty then...

[Grhm]

Originally Posted by walesrob

What a shame we can't pull the plug on YOU

That is very rude.
Yes, we get it: you don't need Classic, and you're not bothered that it has gone.
That's nice for you.
But for those of us who depended on it every day, it feels as if we've lost the use of a limb this morning.

[joe_devore]

Originally Posted by Grhm

That is very rude.
Yes, we get it: you don't need Classic, and you're not bothered that it has gone.
That's nice for you.
But for those of us who depended on it every day, it feels as if we've lost the use of a limb this morning.

lol yeah what he said! ;p
hear hear!

[FredOnline]

Originally Posted by walesrob

What a shame we can't pull the plug on YOU

Just add any offenders to your ignore list.

If a tree falls in a forest . . .

[Bamb0]

Originally Posted by Grhm

That is very rude.
Yes, we get it: you don't need Classic, and you're not bothered that it has gone.
That's nice for you.
But for those of us who depended on it every day, it feels as if we've lost the use of a limb this morning.

Alot of people have ignorant attitudes and dont care about something IF IT DOESNT AFFECT THEM and its disgustingly sad.....

[jhollington]

It's not that we don't care, but at the same time we don't want to come into these forums and keep hearing about it — especially when there's nothing that any of us can actually do about it.

FastMail has made it pretty clear — even simply by their non-response — that they don't care in the grand scheme of things. Even if everybody else in these forums were 100% behind you, there's not much we can do to help — even if everybody here cared enough to cancel all of their own FastMail accounts in protest, that would probably represent a fraction of a percentage of FastMail's user base.

Speaking for myself, if FastMail made a change that affected me to the same degree that it's affecting all of you, I'd simply move on. I'd probably come in here and say my piece to express my concerns, dissatisfaction, and frustration at the situation, but I think I could manage to do that in one post, and then put the rest of my time and effort into finding an e-mail provider that did meet my needs.

I've had this sort of thing happen to me with various software apps and online services over the years, so while I completely empathize with what those of you who relied on the classic interface are going through, I'm sorry to say that I've gotten weary of seeing the continued protesting and ranting being directed at deaf ears.

[altmodisch]

Very well put, jhollington. Sometimes it feels like the only people left here are those seeking a venue to p... and moan for months on end about something they know deep down isn't going to change no matter how much they yell and scream.

I'm only still here because I remember the old days 10-15 years ago where these forums were bustling with positive discussions and ideas being thrown around between users and developers of Fastmail and Runbox.

Things have moved on, Fastmail is a bigger, more mature company now, and I wouldn't expect them to participate here as much as they did ten years ago, because they have a business to run, and the number of users on this forum now constitute a miniscule fraction of their total customer base. They cannot pander to the (very) few, vocal users here anymore than they do already, for many reasons. Add to that the whole attitude (some) EMD users are displaying, and I'm surprised to see anyone from Fastmail here at all.

I fully expect a few currently active EMD members to enter an extended mourning (and moaning) period at the demise of the classic interface today, after which I hope the winds here will change, instigating a more positive atmosphere for the rest of us who would like nothing more than to help fellow Fastmail users with their problems and discuss creative uses of Fastmail's many features. Right now, I find it quite difficult to muster any kind of motivation for visiting these forums due to the amount of gall uttered in almost every new post here, but here's hoping that will change soon!

[MHartfield]

Originally Posted by Grhm

That is very rude.
Yes, we get it: you don't need Classic, and you're not bothered that it has gone.
That's nice for you.
But for those of us who depended on it every day, it feels as if we've lost the use of a limb this morning.

I 100% agree with this. I highly recommended FastMail to a number of my clients and friends (I'm a CPA, so my clients tend to listen to what I say, and several of them are FM customers.) I feel as though I've been raped by a company that I once trusted and respected. I'm sure many of the negative commentators here have similar emotions.

[PON]

I think some of the reaction here isn't taking the long view (I highly recommend the book THE ART OF THE LONG VIEW by Peter Schwarz, incidentally).

I say this not to take sides but to add a perspective note. Somehow reading the lamentations brought OZCIS to mind.

OZCIS was a tool for maximizing one's bang for the buck using Compuserve (Information Service; CIS). It pre-dated the Internet and helped minimize the dial-up minutes by first collecting the lists of topic headers (pass 1) and then, when you marked what you wanted to read, collected the threads (pass 2). A first/third pass could post responses.

I vaguely recall passionate argument about things that were overtaken by technological change. Dial-up was replaced by always-on links; CIS was replaced by the Internet; modems went the way of carburettors.

All change meets resistance. People are loss averse, naturally. Once I'd learned CP/M inside out I wasn't all that keen on moving to MS-DOS. Change is disruptive and can be a pain in the short term. As a former software developer I'm sympathetic to the arguments made by Brong here, and I think we should keep in mind that we've all seen bigger and better resourced companies flame out by being too slow to respond to change. Each of us, surely, has listened to a billionaire whom we knew for sure was totally wrong, in denial, and headed for the scrap heap (Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems comes to mind).

All that said, I regret the "we know better than you and if you don't like it leave" impression that some, including some long standing customers, have of Fastmail's handling of the change.

I'd like to see Fastmail doing some fence-mending consultation in future. I emailed support, again, asking for sorting of contacts by nickname. The response was insulting to someone who has used Fastmail for 15 years:

• telling me that it's not supported (hello? why am I asking for this and noting that it's not the first request?)
  
• and that my request will be passed on to our supervisors (plural!)

supervisors? Plural? A company of about 14 people has supervisors, plural, for the support function? Somehow this has connotations of great distance. We'll send a message but don't hold your breath in case the superior beings (whose salaries you help pay) consider this beneath their notice.

Rrrright.

[Bamb0]

Originally Posted by MHartfield

I highly recommended FastMail to a number of my clients and friends.

I dont think I would recommend them to ANYONE now that they have cut off all but the newest browsers and changed a GOOD email interface to one that isnt as good....

[mmerlinn]

The problem I have with Fastmail is the same problem I have had with dozens of other companies, both internet and brick & mortar. The companies are sold, the new owners fix that which IS NOT BROKEN, and eventually the companies go out of business. Will all of the time and money wasted by Fastmail continuously REINVENTING the wheel cause their demise? No idea now, but that is what usually happens in scenarios like this.

Everyone here knows companies that have gone this route, both on Main Street and on the internet. Think Geocities, MySpace, WBS (all 3 of which were the leaders in their time) and so on.

One local company (company A) that comes to mind was sold to another company (company B). A had NET profits of 24 million dollars in its last full year before selling out. B started fixing things that were not broken. Seven years later B was LOSING a quarter of a million dollars PER MONTH at this ONE location! Earlier this year (2 years later) another company (company C) got A and 21 other locations worldwide from B just for assuming the debt racked up by B. Basically B walked away with NOTHING after 20 odd years in business. C has been hiring back as many people as possible from the original A to restaff A locally and hopefully bring back the profits. I assume C is doing the same thing at each of the other 21 locations that B had.

I now can never use Fastmail again, so I am moving on to whatever I can find that WORKS. I did that 13 years ago when Hotmail started going on the skids and found Fastmail, thinking that I had found my home forever. Alas, it was not to be.

I have other accounts, both paid and free, all of which at least work, even though they may be slow or kludgy. And I will keep searching for something to replace Fastmail.

[Bamb0]

Yup thats quite true!

I would have paid $50 a month for my classic account......... Its just very sad