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Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

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Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#251

Post by dasil003 »

Isofarro wrote: post #246
dasil003 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get it. TextDrive was founded and sold on a vision. Imagine what will happen if in a few years Dalton decides to stick ads all over App.net and send threatening letters to developers in the name of "curating the user experience". That's where the righteous indignation is coming from.

Correct, I don't get it. You bought into a vision that clearly makes no sense today, but didn't make much sense back in 2004. The reward for that investment was a shared-hosting account, which has kept running for 8 years. There seems to be a confusion about whether you lifers have paid up-front for a long term shared-hosting account or whether you are investors into the business. If you are investors, you should pro…

Whether it makes sense or not is beside the point. How much value we got is beside the point (the quality was such shit I wrote it off a long time ago incidentally).

The point I was trying to impart to you is that this was not just slimy bottom-of-the-barrel shared hosting marketing. The promise really was made in good faith and should be honored.

And wrt to App.net, fine, you are a stoic Buddhist individual. But I guarantee you that if that happens, people will fucking crucify him.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#252

Post by dasil003 »

Isofarro wrote: post #242
dasil003 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few corrections. Dreamhost isn't and wasn't ever cPanel. It got hot back in '01 / '02. The outages in 2004 weren't lengthy, were mostly DoS and got blown way out of proportion by people who thought $10/month was a kingly sum that entitled them to dedicated-server quality. The quality of Dreamhost's shared hosting hasn't really diminished over the years and it's still perfectly adequate for low traffic PHP or even R…

"TextDrive by contrast was founded on the principle of combatting the race to the bottom by charging a fair price and offering unparalleled power and flexibility. This vision was sold to us by Dean Allen who had an enormously positive reputation as one of the very best early bloggers. Funding TextDrive with these lifetime accounts was not just us chumps buying into some bottom-feeders marketing scam. There was real i…

It was anything but typical. Seriously, you shouldn't comment on it as if all your stereotypes perfectly explain everything. They don't. You weren't there.

Regarding Dean Allen, I have no beef with him, because A) he wasn't in the forum daily talking about all the awesome stuff they were doing that never actually panned out for years on end and B) I suspect he disagreed with the way the company was being run (the instability, the poor customer service) and either was forced out or left of his own volition. But either way it would be bad form for him to air his dirty laundry, so I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also FWIW, I'm not on a crusade at all. I haven't thought about TextDrive or Joyent for years. I've written them off. But I do see it as a public service to make my opinion of Jason Hoffman's integrity known.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#253

Post by bradleyjg »

Isofarro wrote: post #243
bradleyjg wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law isn't unreasonable. If you have a cash-flow sustainable business but you've taken on too many obligations you can restructure in bankruptcy. Of course that'll wipe out your equity holders but they are supposed to be behind creditors. As for laughing at lawsuits, I think you will find that most companies don't. I hate to tell you but being a hip new economy company doesn't impress judges.

"I hate to tell you but being a hip new economy company doesn't impress judges." Neither does insisting on a full refund after 8 years of consuming their services.

As I mention downthread, the usual measure of damages in contract is expectancy - i.e. what value would party B recieved if party A had fufilled its part of the bargain.

In this case the bargain was akin to a undated bond (the UK issued some of these), in exchange for a payment up front and infinite stream of payments. The net present value of such is straightforward to calculate; one interesting property is that their nominal value is not dependent on the time since issuance, thought their real value drops with inflation.

The law is not unreasonable, it allows for efficient breach. No court is going to order specific performance (i.e. that Joyent actually carry out its promise) but it will have to make good via monetary damages.

US courts are sophisticated enough to understand such bargains (at least since Posner was appointed to the bench in 1981).

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#254

Post by coopdog »

gaoshan wrote: post #208
velcrovan wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VC here...How did you get this? Did it come in response to a support ticket? Did you ask them for a full refund? Is half of your original investment $100 or more like $1000?

I asked for a full refund. They came back with "half".

Should be more like "triple" or some other multiple, given the risk the early adopters took. Joyent used that capital and expanded it many, many times.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#255

Post by mikeash »

jacques_chester wrote: post #230
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.

Some customers don't want a refund. They want Joyent to perform its half of the contract.

Yes, but slavery is illegal.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#256

Post by jacques_chester »

mikeash wrote: post #255
jacques_chester wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some customers don't want a refund. They want Joyent to perform its half of the contract.

Yes, but slavery is illegal.

Where do you get the idea that asking someone to uphold their end of a contract is equivalent to owning a human being?

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#257

Post by mikeash »

genbattle wrote: post #198
mikeash wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifetime service can be really useful for a company to sell, too. It's basically a way for them to borrow money at a cost potentially below what other capital markets may provide. If you have customers who will buy and are wiling to take the risk that you'll go out of business, it can be a good way to raise money without becoming indebted to banks or VC. I imagine Joyent benefitted from this when they were starting o…

Just thinking of a specific case, but what do you think about subscription games that promise a lifetime membership (e.g. Star Trek online), then end up going F2P anyway? I would postulate that this is a similar issue, as you are now being charged for the game _again_ via the F2P model. That said, it seems like it would be a harder one to solve; would the paid content have to be available to the lifetime subscribers…

Interesting question. I'd say that a game that goes F2P should exclude their lifetime members from whatever revenue model they have. If they're supported by advertisement, don't show ads to the lifetime members. If they're supported by selling premium content, let lifetime members have access to it all.

It seems like, in that case, lifetime membership could actually make for a decent ongoing revenue model. Want everything in the game, or want to go ad-free forever? Buy a lifetime membership for only $BIGNUM! Price it right and you could still make more money from those people than you'd make from having them buy bits and pieces over time. If you're F2P, presumably you've already structured the service to be very cheap to provide.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#258

Post by mikeash »

jacques_chester wrote: post #256
mikeash wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but slavery is illegal.

Where do you get the idea that asking someone to uphold their end of a contract is equivalent to owning a human being?

Asking them to do it is fine, but you can't obligate them to do it. A contract can never force you to perform work, because that is slavery. It can force you to perform work or suffer some kind of penalty. In this case, I think the appropriate penalty is a full refund for all of the affected customers.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#259

Post by hboon »

obiefernandez wrote: post #163

Here's the answer you'll get if you write to their support complaining about the change: Hi Obie, As often happens in the software business, vendors “end of life” older platforms and migrate customers to new versions or platforms. The service you purchased a “lifetime subscription” to will no longer be supported or available from Joyent. On the other hand, we appreciate and value your business as an early customer. A…

I wrote back several words with a link http://discuss.joyent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=64656#p64656 as well as a screenshot like http://cl.ly/image/2y3k0x3p3a0v. Let's see where that brings us.

Re: Joyent ending "lifetime" hosting accounts

#260

Post by jacques_chester »

mikeash wrote: post #258
jacques_chester wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get the idea that asking someone to uphold their end of a contract is equivalent to owning a human being?

Asking them to do it is fine, but you can't obligate them to do it. A contract can never force you to perform work, because that is slavery. It can force you to perform work or suffer some kind of penalty. In this case, I think the appropriate penalty is a full refund for all of the affected customers.

Are you a lawyer? I'm not, though I studied law for a while.

What you say may be true of common law. But I suspect the doctrines of equity may have other ideas. The return of funds is not the same as lifetime hosting. Those clients want specific performance and equity may yet grant it to them.

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