Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

Post by smackfu » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 5:41 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #103

smackfu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tivo has Lifetime subscriptions, where the lifetime is of the hardware but they transfer if you sell the hardware. They aren't always selling them as an option, but they always honor them, and have been for 10+ years.

I had one of the original Tivos in the UK, and I bought a lifetime subscription. They ended this service in 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo#United_Kingdom They no longer honour this deal in UK (which sucks, because I loved it).

Post by gaoshan » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

timkeller wrote: post #69

> "...and noticed that you are one of the few customers that are still on our early products..." One of the few? Cool. It's not costing you that much to keep them on their lifetime plan. Surely its not worth the negative PR? Not sure what Joyent is thinking.

Post by Karunamon » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #109

It never ceases to amaze me how many people "fall" for this "lifetime" pricing model. In fact I said the exact same thing three months ago [1]. The fact that the service provider is not getting any future revenue from you, even if they've fairly discounted your lifetime value, gives them the incentive to get rid of you. Additionally it gives the wrong incentives to users to "abuse" their "unlimited" service. You saw…

Post by wpietri » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #53

howeyc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should, but probably wont. If you sell a service, but decide not to provide it you should refund the money. Judging from the comments most of HN assumes if you "attempt" to provide the service you can keep the money. Yes, I get it's a losing proposition for Joyent to live up to their obligations. So what? You either live up to them, or refund the money, it's really that simple.

Yeah, the comments seem to be filled with people saying that it's not practical to provide "lifetime", and people buying it should have known they didn't mean it anyway. I look at this the same way I look at "unlimited" internet service. Unlike a lot of the tech crowd, I have no problem whatsoever with metered bandwidth. My only quibble is that if you advertise "unlimited" you had better actually provide unlimited. I…

Post by sriramk » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

howradical wrote: post #105

calinet6 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt, I was a very early slicehost customer, and just wanted to say thanks for the years of great service and straightforward business. I really loved what you did and hope you're continuing to do well. Cheers!

My pleasure, thank you for believing in us.