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Old 26 Jan 2017, 10:23 AM   #181
BritTim
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@somefmfan, welcome to the forum! I hope you find a good replacement for your FastMail account. At least you have a few months to make the transition, and will not be required to listen to any Vogon poetry in the process!
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Old 26 Jan 2017, 10:47 AM   #182
Terry
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Why don't Fastmail keep the old classic UI and move all people who are supposedly losing their life time account on to that then there would possibly be a lot of very happy Fastmail uses.

Just my 2 cents worth...
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Old 26 Jan 2017, 12:53 PM   #183
Gsptlsnz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
Why don't Fastmail keep the old classic UI and move all people who are supposedly losing their life time account on to that then there would possibly be a lot of very happy Fastmail uses.

Just my 2 cents worth...
That makes too much sense.
And we will have none of that here!!!
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Old 26 Jan 2017, 01:39 PM   #184
paul29
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Originally Posted by walesrob View Post
Any proof?

I say again, why would FM buy Pobox then sell the whole lot just a year later?
No proof, just my reading of the tea leaves.

Buying Pobox fits in. The idea of selling is finding a buyer who wants a consolidated email footprint. So you work out the numbers and decide.
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Old 27 Jan 2017, 05:21 AM   #185
zsazs
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paul29 View Post
No proof, just my reading of the tea leaves.

Buying Pobox fits in. The idea of selling is finding a buyer who wants a consolidated email footprint. So you work out the numbers and decide.
I dunno. FM was purchased by Opera in 2010, and in 2013 the employees bought the company back to become independent again. That puts doubt in my mind that they'd do it again, plus, who would be a buyer? Everyone big already has a mail platform.
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Old 27 Jan 2017, 10:18 AM   #186
Bamb0
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Well they may be thinking of selling again and they THINK this will make it look better
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Old 27 Jan 2017, 07:35 PM   #187
pjroutledge
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Not provocative, but ...

Seriously, I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but having read this thread, as a paying member (who initially joined FastMail on a 'lifetime' free account many years ago), I can't help thinking that a significant proportion of my payments may have been used by FastMail to fund maintenance or compatibility of the classic interface and the free account holders.

The possibility that FastMail might be gilding the company in anticipation of a sale worries me, but if that's not the case I'd think I'd rather see some of the contributors here either pay their way or move on.

No offence intended, but I did have had a few reds tonight, and In vino veritas ...
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Old 27 Jan 2017, 09:47 PM   #188
Gsptlsnz
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Offer 2GB and the "Classic" for $15. and see how many stay!
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Old 28 Jan 2017, 12:01 AM   #189
somefmfan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BritTim View Post
@somefmfan, welcome to the forum! I hope you find a good replacement for your FastMail account. At least you have a few months to make the transition, and will not be required to listen to any Vogon poetry in the process!
Thanks



As an unintended consequence of the reference I feel like a stowaway being threatened with the vacuum of space.

This analogy has some humorous angles but I'll leave it alone

Although I would gladly pay for the mb's of food and water I've come to know.

cheers
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Old 28 Jan 2017, 12:06 AM   #190
somefmfan
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Originally Posted by Gsptlsnz View Post
Offer 2GB and the "Classic" for $15. and see how many stay!
yes please!
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Old 28 Jan 2017, 03:00 AM   #191
communicant
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pjroutledge View Post
Seriously, I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but having read this thread, as a paying member (who initially joined FastMail on a 'lifetime' free account many years ago), I can't help thinking that a significant proportion of my payments may have been used by FastMail to fund maintenance or compatibility of the classic interface and the free account holders.

The possibility that FastMail might be gilding the company in anticipation of a sale worries me, but if that's not the case I'd think I'd rather see some of the contributors here either pay their way or move on.

No offence intended, but I did have had a few reds tonight, and In vino veritas ...
Prefacing a post such as #187 by the magic wand of saying the poster doesn't want it to be 'taken the wrong way' recalls the old saying about the futility of putting lipstick on a pig.

1) There is not (and never was) any such thing as a 'lifetime free account'. You are conflating and confusing the free Guest accounts with the 'lifetime' Member accounts, which were purchased for a one-time fee.

2) The notion of any remotely measurable proportion of your subsequent payments (let alone a 'significant proportion', and so presumably a significant proportion of such payments in the aggregate, as a proportion of FastMail's overall revenue stream) being used to fund 'maintenance' of free accounts is utterly preposterous. The only free accounts ever offered after payments began to be levied by FastMail at all were the tiny Guest accounts, which cost an almost invisible amount to 'maintain' in the early years and precisely zero for the years thereafter, ever since FastMail stopped supporting them. As for the Member accounts, they were paid for under terms offered and set by FastMail and met by those who chose to take them up on the offer, so it is both inaccurate and offensive to imply that holders of such accounts are somehow freeloaders or leeches and should 'pay their way or move on'.

3) Heaven only knows (ingestion of red wine notwithstanding) what you meant by the reference to the use of your money to fund 'compatibility of the classic interface', but for starters, please remember that for many years, what later came to be called the 'classic' interface was the ONLY interface and was used by one and all. The division into a standard and a 'classic' interface is of comparatively recent vintage in the history of the company. In any case, the notion that FastMail is squandering some 'significant portion' of your payments to maintain the classic interface is beyond even ascribing to the effects of red wine.

This entire matter has stirred up an astonishing amount of illogic, misunderstanding and potential ill-feeling among some of FastMail's most loyal and earliest customers, and no doubt also among other more recent arrivals and would-be subscribers whose impressions of the company are being formed by this increasingly muddled and counterproductive controversy. For this I blame FastMail more than the contributors to this thread, for it was their ill-considered and weakly explained business decision that triggered the mess in the first place, a needless mess that could have been completely avoided by measures that would have increased customer good will rather than endangering it. What a pity all around!

Last edited by communicant : 28 Jan 2017 at 03:23 AM.
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Old 29 Jan 2017, 04:52 AM   #192
Gsptlsnz
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Top Free Email Services,
https://www.lifewire.com/top-free-em...rvices-1171481
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Old 29 Jan 2017, 08:33 AM   #193
jchevali
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gsptlsnz View Post
@Gsptlsnz Losing someone's long-term FastMail address isn't fixed by opening an account elsewhere, unless forwarding is put in place by FastMail to ensure the old addresses can still receive mail..
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Old 29 Jan 2017, 08:44 AM   #194
Gsptlsnz
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Originally Posted by jchevali View Post
@Gsptlsnz Losing someone's long-term FastMail address isn't fixed by opening an account elsewhere, unless forwarding is put in place by FastMail to ensure the old addresses can still receive mail..
Some people have said they will go elsewhere when the Member accounts are closed. These are some of the many options.
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Old 30 Jan 2017, 07:11 AM   #195
TechGuy2000
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Unhappy Open Letter to Jeremy Howard, Rob Mueller, and FastMail Team

[Copy of e-mail sent to Jeremy Howard, Rob Mueller, and FastMail Team]

Jeremy, Rob, and FastMail Team:

I am profoundly disappointed to learn that FastMail has decided to discontinue the lifetime Member level plans.*I first signed up for FastMail in October 2002 after being referred by a friend who was excited about your company. For the vast majority of my time as a FastMail member, I had a FastMail Enhanced subscription, but for financial reasons I decided not to renew my subscription and to take advantage of my membership and revert to a Member level plan. One of the reasons I signed up for FastMail over 14 years ago, paid for a membership, and paid for an Enhanced subscription for so many years, was the assurance that, as long as FastMail remained in business, I would be able to keep my e-mail address forever--even if I chose, at any point, to stop subscribing to the higher level plans. That Member level fallback benefit was something FastMail specifically designed and marketed, and it was a big selling point for me. When I paid for the Member account and when I subscribed to the Enhanced subscription, the FastMail website expressly stated that the Member account as a "lifetime 'Member' account" (see:*https://web.archive.org/web/20021215....fm/mail/login).

FastMail continued to reassure those of us who had signed up to become lifetime "Members" that our paid membership would continue (see for example: https://blog.fastmail.com/2003/02/25...criptions/*and https://blog.fastmail.com/2008/12/16...to-be-removed/). If you paid a fee to become a lifetime member of some other organization (such as:*https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/...ife-membership) and then the organization decided to end your lifetime membership and require you to start paying annually to be a member, wouldn't you be justifiably upset? Many businesses that offer other kinds of services offer a lifetime service option (such as lifetime wheel alignment service:*http://www.sears.com/lifetime-alignm...9016032000P*or lifetime service agreements for power tools:*http://www.homedepot.com/c/SF_TH_PR_...Tools_Warranty).

It is clear that FastMail offered the Member level plan as a "lifetime" plan, and I expect many other people signed up for FastMail's Member plan for the same reason that I did. For example, see:
Rob Mueller's acknowledgement that FastMail had offered a lifetime Member plan:*http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=42971
See media article re-posted by Jeremy Howard discussing the lifetime Member plan:*http://jhoward.fastmail.fm/media/slicker_wheel.html
Jeremy Howard's statement that the Member plan was designed and intended to be a one-time, lifetime membership and that it was carefully designed to be sustainable:*http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...8&postcount=33

I understand (as discussed here:*https://blog.fastmail.com/2010/05/30...-all-accounts/) that the one-time membership fee associated with the Member level account means that FastMail cannot increase the storage and bandwidth quotas--and I would not expect you to do so.*I can't believe that it costs much of anything for FastMail to support Member level accounts with a 16MB storage quota and an 80MB monthly bandwidth quota.

When a company makes the business decision to offer a service for a one-time fee, it is responsible for taking into account the costs of that lifetime service. (And based on Jeremy's comments linked to above, it appears the FastMail did just that.) If the company later decides it made a bad business decision, it can stop offering the service for a one-time fee. It can also attempt to incentivize customers to voluntarily give up their lifetime service (as FastMail did in the past when it offered a voluntary incentive for members to trade in their memberships for a $14.95 credit toward the purchase of a Full or Enhanced subscription, which would mean that such users would fallback to a Guest level plans rather than Member level plans if they didn't renew (see: https://blog.fastmail.com/2004/08/14...o-2gb-storage/). But the company is NOT free to unilaterally change the terms of the deal after customers already paid for the lifetime service. And if you continue with your plan to cancel the paid memberships of your customers, you will demonstrate that FastMail is untrustworthy as a company. Why would I trust a company that changes the terms of an agreement after I sign up?

Over the past 14 years that I have been a FastMail customer and member, I have respected your company and have referred others to your service. I joined FastMail back in its infancy, and after paying to become a member, I truly felt like part of the FastMail family. I remember back in the early days when Jeremy had periodic health problems and the outpouring of concern, prayers, and encouragement that the other members and I shared for him (for example:*http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...ad.php?t=13597)

I respectfully ask that you re-consider and stand by your advertised offer of a paid lifetime membership and allow those of us who have Member plans to keep them. Please do not undermine the trust I put in you--and the trust I encouraged others to put in you.

But if you choose to continue with your plan to cancel my paid lifetime membership, rather than a service credit, I would ask that you refund the $14.95 membership fee I paid you when the Member plan is discontinued on July 31, 2017.

Respectfully,
************
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