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Old 3 Aug 2017, 09:00 PM   #451
communicant
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Now that July has become August and the accounts are truly gone, I agree that there is no practical point in continuing the debate, though the poor 'dead horse' metaphor does tend to be woefully overdone.

However, even with that having been said, recent posts in this thread have moved me to raise an aspect of the controversy one more time, to make a point that (so far as I know, having followed the various iterations of threads on the forthcoming closures since their inception) has not yet been made, which is:

1) It has been maintained, repeatedly by some, that the lifetime Member accounts had always been offered as test vehicles, to give prospective customers a test-drive (so to speak) of the service, in the expectation that they would then select an annual plan.

2) That is flat-out wrong, and is contradicted by FastMail's own actions. It would make some sense, I suppose, if this claim were to be made about the Guest accounts, but in any case, why would a company offer two entirely separate versions of a 'test-drive' account, both open-ended in time, one entirely free, the other requiring a 'one-time' payment with the clear implication of 'lifetime' service? Such a course makes no business sense (or any other kind of sense). If that had been FastMail's intention, then Member accounts would never have come into existence at all, or perhaps the Guest accounts would have been offered as temporary only, set to expire after several weeks, or some similar limited time span.

3) Accordingly, it is depressing to learn that FastMail is still clinging to this shameless distortion. Why? If they came to feel that they had made a bad business decision by offering the Member accounts, and years later chose to thumb their noses at equity and honesty and simply do away with them, then why weasel about semantics, in a ridiculous attempt to twist and misrepresent the obvious? It does not speak well for FastMail as a company, or for the individuals within it who made decisions, both recent and long ago. And that, I think, will indeed be a lingering black mark for FastMail going forward, and has done the company some lasting harm.

Enough said. The horse can now resume his slumbers.
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Old 3 Aug 2017, 11:06 PM   #452
BritTim
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Originally Posted by communicant View Post
3) Accordingly, it is depressing to learn that FastMail is still clinging to this shameless distortion. Why? If they came to feel that they had made a bad business decision by offering the Member accounts, and years later chose to thumb their noses at equity and honesty and simply do away with them, then why weasel about semantics, in a ridiculous attempt to twist and misrepresent the obvious? It does not speak well for FastMail as a company, or for the individuals within it who made decisions, both recent and long ago. And that, I think, will indeed be a lingering black mark for FastMail going forward, and has done the company some lasting harm.
This is my strong view also. People have said that the most important customers for FastMail are the business customers. That is most likely true. Most business customers will research the companies they are considering using for such an important business function. Non technical factors play a very significant role in the choice of vendor. They are going to find this event, and it will deter organisations from taking a risk with FastMail. This is especially true as previous strong supporters, like me, are now much more nuanced when asked if FastMail is a company you can trust.

Note that it seems in this kind of regard, Google can be trusted more then FastMail. They made their own dubious decision many years ago to offer free Google for Business accounts (as I recall, up to 30 users with your own domain). These free accounts have long ceased to be offered, but existing Google for Business accounts continue to work as they have always done. Google understands the importance of being seen as a reliable partner.
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Old 4 Aug 2017, 10:28 PM   #453
ioneja
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Originally Posted by BritTim View Post
This is especially true as previous strong supporters, like me, are now much more nuanced when asked if FastMail is a company you can trust.
I have slowly come around to a similar point of view.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BritTim View Post
Google understands the importance of being seen as a reliable partner.
As much as I dislike Google, I have to agree with you on this.

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Originally Posted by communicant View Post
... It does not speak well for FastMail as a company, or for the individuals within it who made decisions....
Again, after reconsideration, I have come around to agree with this. I looked back at the Internet archive capture of the page from back in the day, and it directly contradicts what FM has stated recently, and I was a little surprised. Not to flog a dead horse even more, but it changes my enthusiasm with people about FM. The way FM handled it definitely bothers me now.

FM has seemingly missed a critical understanding of how people feel about things like this, and it goes deeper than just a little account. One hopes that they will learn.
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Old 6 Aug 2017, 03:42 AM   #454
thisisnotgood
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After this circus..

who would think Fastmail can be trusted? They have clearly demonstrated they look out for their own financial interest with disregard from what they promise or offer. It reminds me back in the day when your could not port your phone numbers. Once they telco's had your number, they can hang you up to dry because they knew you needed to keep it if you had it for a while and distributed it to people for contact. This is why they passed the phone number portability laws. The same thing applies to email addresses. The only customers that may feel safe (with the exception of having their rate raised) would be customers that have their own domain names.
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Old 6 Aug 2017, 04:56 AM   #455
odedp
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The only customers that may feel safe (with the exception of having their rate raised) would be customers that have their own domain names.
...or customers who use a Pobox address
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Old 6 Aug 2017, 08:02 AM   #456
BritTim
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...or customers who use a Pobox address
Remember, FastMail now owns Pobox. While I doubt they will, there would be nothing to prevent them, say, doubling the subscription for your Pobox account.

The only fairly sure protection is your own domain.
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Old 6 Aug 2017, 08:19 AM   #457
TenFour
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While I doubt they will, there would be nothing to prevent them, say, doubling the subscription for your Pobox account.
The email provider world is quite competitive at the moment, and you'll notice that many offerings hover around $50 for a year of service including webmail, multiple domains, and substantial amounts of storage. With G Suite starting at $5 per month ($60 per year) I would guess that most providers of roughly similar services would find it very difficult to increase pricing, except at the enterprise level where various options and higher levels of specialized service are required.If you start charging much more a lot of people will just move to G Suite or possibly a Microsoft 365 subscription of some sort. It is really hard for most providers to differentiate themselves in this market.
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Old 6 Aug 2017, 02:53 PM   #458
odedp
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Remember, FastMail now owns Pobox. While I doubt they will, there would be nothing to prevent them, say, doubling the subscription for your Pobox account.

The only fairly sure protection is your own domain.
BritTim,
Theoretically you are of course right!
But what TenFour said makes sense.
To be on the safe side I own a domain too
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Old 9 Aug 2017, 06:25 AM   #459
thisisnotgood
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...

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Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
If you start charging much more a lot of people will just move to G Suite or possibly a Microsoft 365 subscription of some sort. It is really hard for most providers to differentiate themselves in this market.
That is true if you have your own domain, but if you are unlucky enough not to and have their domain and have given out your email to thousands of clients and have it everywhere then they have the noose around your neck and really can charge whatever they want just like FM is doing now..
. This is the problem with paid email service.
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Old 9 Aug 2017, 06:49 AM   #460
TenFour
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can charge whatever they want just like FM is doing now..
. This is the problem with paid email service.
I think the way to go is: Paid = own domain. Free = the service's domains. And, personally, I suggest that the only free email providers worth using for important email are the giants: Gmail and Outlook.com. Maybe Yandex if you trust them. You need to be with a free service that makes its money elsewhere, like Google. It isn't cheap to run a good email service and "free" won't cut it for long if you can't monetize your customers in some other manner.
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Old 9 Aug 2017, 09:41 AM   #461
sflorack
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That is true if you have your own domain, but if you are unlucky enough not to and have their domain and have given out your email to thousands of clients and have it everywhere then they have the noose around your neck and really can charge whatever they want just like FM is doing now.
This is the fundamental difference I have with those who feel like they're being raked over the coals: that you're somehow "unlucky". If your livelihood depended upon your ability to maintain an email address in a domain owned by someone else without any backup plan, you have little business sense.

This doesn't mean I don't sympathize with those who lost an account they thought was truly "lifetime". But come on.. your detracting from those folks by screaming foul when you could have easily migrated to another service (although you'd eventually be in the same boat) or purchased your own domain. (Which can be had for less than a dollar.) Based upon the initial post of this thread, you had nearly eight months to make the change and notify your "thousands of clients".
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Old 10 Aug 2017, 03:15 AM   #462
thisisnotgood
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Thumbs up Yes

Quote:
Originally Posted by TenFour View Post
I think the way to go is: Paid = own domain. Free = the service's domains. And, personally, I suggest that the only free email providers worth using for important email are the giants: Gmail and Outlook.com. Maybe Yandex if you trust them. You need to be with a free service that makes its money elsewhere, like Google. It isn't cheap to run a good email service and "free" won't cut it for long if you can't monetize your customers in some other manner.
I agree 100%.
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Old 10 Aug 2017, 03:21 AM   #463
thisisnotgood
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maybe

Quote:
Originally Posted by sflorack View Post
This is the fundamental difference I have with those who feel like they're being raked over the coals: that you're somehow "unlucky". If your livelihood depended upon your ability to maintain an email address in a domain owned by someone else without any backup plan, you have little business sense.

This doesn't mean I don't sympathize with those who lost an account they thought was truly "lifetime". But come on.. your detracting from those folks by screaming foul when you could have easily migrated to another service (although you'd eventually be in the same boat) or purchased your own domain. (Which can be had for less than a dollar.) Based upon the initial post of this thread, you had nearly eight months to make the change and notify your "thousands of clients".
You make some good points, and you are correct that if it is a business account you should have a back up plan. But what about personal email. The same thing applies, using a domain name that doesn't belong to you is a noose around your neck. Suppose (unlike me) you have several hundreds of friends and family who you supplied your email addy to. It's still a huge hassle to "migrate" to another email address. TenFour comment above pretty much wraps up the rules of the game in a couple of sentences...
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Old 10 Aug 2017, 06:44 AM   #464
TenFour
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It's still a huge hassle to "migrate" to another email address.
I have found that the migration never ends, having done it several times. I still get personal friends sending emails to addresses I long ago abandoned for major use, and businesses often just keep on sending to the old address no matter what you do--often in addition to your new address. This is one good reason to only use "free" addresses from major outfits, like Gmail and Outlook, that offer reliable forwarding that can go on forever. Some claim that forwarding is broken, yet I have found it to be reliable from Gmail and Outlook accounts. These two also have good spam filters so very little spam gets forwarded, which is one of the problems with forwarding.
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Old 10 Aug 2017, 11:44 AM   #465
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You make some good points, and you are correct that if it is a business account you should have a back up plan. But what about personal email.
I agree that it's an inconvenience, but your original point was that the "noose around your neck" was regarding businesses using a FM-owned domain.
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