Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails • Hacker News Board

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#121

Post by manigandham » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

stoev wrote: post #3

When Facebook banned blockchain-related ads it was understandable - they are a closed platform and can chose to accept whatever content they decide to. When Google banned blockchain-related ads it was a much more serious issue - millions of websites are supported by Google ads through AdSense and AdX. Google is the main revenue source of the vast majority of publishers on the open internet. It seems incredibly unfair…

None of this is censoring. The government is not prosecuting this speech (which falls under commercial and is not completely free) and closed platforms can do whatever they want. In fact, as the last 100 topics have shown, regulation in digital advertising is sorely needed.

Email is the most open API of all, you can send people anything from anywhere using a simple email server so I don't see what the big deal is, especially in dropping a service for doing something that doesn't have any affect on your business at all.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#122

Post by vamin » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

rargulati wrote: post #89

What alternatives to Mailchimp would folks recommend? The ideal alternative would have the following desirable components: - A reasonable to use API - A transactional component (or integrations with Sendgrid/other provider) - Not painful to use

SendGrid has a newsletter/marketing product called "Marketing Campaigns" that's worth a look, it satisfies those three requirements.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#123

Post by zitterbewegung » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #114

zitterbewegung wrote: post #29

Well, guess I am shutting down my mailchimp account for this reason. I planned on using it for my marketing purposes but I guess I will go with leadpages or DIY. Anyone have any ideas for alternatives?

They've been doing this from the beginning. Are you specifically marketing ICO or crypto?

I plan on doing it. Also, my consulting is related to ICO and crypto now so I don't want to be associated with it.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#124

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

JamesLeonis wrote: post #71

There's a lot of handwringing over whether Mailchimp did the right/wrong/good/bad/neutral thing, or why ICOs in particular. But ICOs did this to themselves. This is the collateral damage from our terrible stewardship of Blockchain and cryptotoken reputations. In the sprint to massive investments and skirting regulation, the whole cryptotoken space collectively harmed it's whole reputation. Fraud, scams, poor security…

My preferred analogy is with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_schemes_in_Albania : enough fraud can collapse a country.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#125

Post by notyourwork » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

stoev wrote: post #3

When Facebook banned blockchain-related ads it was understandable - they are a closed platform and can chose to accept whatever content they decide to. When Google banned blockchain-related ads it was a much more serious issue - millions of websites are supported by Google ads through AdSense and AdX. Google is the main revenue source of the vast majority of publishers on the open internet. It seems incredibly unfair…

Email is an open platform, mailchimp is not. This is a distinction your argument fails to accept.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#126

Post by TearsInTheRain » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

I would really appreciate it if tech companies stopped acting like everybody's nanny and allowed people to take responsibility for their own actions.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#127

Post by kristianc » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #119

kristianc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should they? Doing that brings very little upside for MailChimp and a lot of potential downside if Google decides to blacklist MailChimp's entire IP range. And then they have to devote engineering / moderation resource to routing emails to the correct IP shard.

So charge more?

SaaS businesses operate on volume - they don't make margin by offering custom engineering to anyone who asks for it.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#128

Post by SilasX » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

payne92 wrote: post #9

stoev wrote: post #3

When Facebook banned blockchain-related ads it was understandable - they are a closed platform and can chose to accept whatever content they decide to. When Google banned blockchain-related ads it was a much more serious issue - millions of websites are supported by Google ads through AdSense and AdX. Google is the main revenue source of the vast majority of publishers on the open internet. It seems incredibly unfair…

They're not "censoring people for discussing a perfectly legal technology"; read their policy carefully: >>> It’s important to note that this update to our policy does not prevent the discussion of related topics in messages sent through our platform. For example, journalists and publications may send cryptocurrency-related information as long as they’re not involved in the production, sale, exchange, storage, or mar…

I mostly agree but this:

>>not involved in the exchange of cryptocurrencies

... seems overkill. So any journalist who has actually transacted with Bitcoins is off the platform? That seems like mainly negative effects from the standpoint of "selecting for informed journalists".

"Sure, you can use our platform to talk about cryptocurrencies, as long as you're just one of those admire-from-a-distance types."

Ditto for production -- that would include e.g. anyone who's contributed code.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#129

Post by freewilly1040 » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

massaman_yams wrote: post #112

spamizbad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. A cornerstone of Mailchimp's value proposition is its email deliverability, and its one of the best in the industry at landing emails in people's inboxes. Anything that could compromise that reputation would be a huge blow to their business. ICO and blockchain emails can make spam filters go crazy, I've seen this first-hand. Mailchimp can't control how spam filters work, but it can control, in a br…

I gave tagged email addresses out to a couple ICOs a while back, and they have been repeatedly sold off and sent spam by completely unrelated companies (usually through Sendgrid, incidentally - though Sendgrid has been good at shutting them down for anti-spam policy violations after the fact). The ICO industry in general has shown its lack of respect for securities law (though there are exceptions); why would they ad…

>> Mailchimp cares about deliverability, sure.

Email delivery is a commodity business. Literally the only thing Mailchimp cares about is 1) deliverability and 2) price.

>> having 0.1% of traffic related to ICOs isn't going to meaningfully impact broader deliverability

Why couldn't it? That seems like plenty to get flagged by Gmail and the like.

Re: Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

#130

Post by hippich » Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

Hm.. We use Mailchimp for our rather smallish mailing list at hashcash.io, and we are "producing", so I guess we are about to be slashed..

For other projects recently I started using Mautic + Sovereign Ansible playbooks to setup mail server. You are on your own to get trust from big mail providers, but after that you will have full control over whole process. Probably worth it.