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Mailchimp Is Shutting Down ICO and Blockchain-Related Emails

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

#131

Post by s73v3r_ »

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…

I'm getting really tired of the misuse of the word "censorship" when it comes to topics like this. Mailchimp is not censoring anything. They are not preventing those advertisers from getting their message out. What they are doing is choosing not to partner and work with people they believe might be likely scammers. Something we all do. If you want to complain about that, then you're saying that a person should no longer be able to choose who they do business with. Do you want to be compelled to buy a car from the shady dealer with a reputation for selling lemons? If not, then why should Mailchimp?

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

#132

Post by s73v3r_ »

millettjon wrote: post #73
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…

They could easily route riskier traffic over a separate set of ips and domains without affecting delivery of other domains. This is standard practice in the industry.

But why spend that level of effort for a really low return?

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

#133

Post by s73v3r_ »

stoev wrote: post #13
lawnchair wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree and it's nice to hear you're exercising your right as a consumer by boycotting Mailchimp. Having said that, can't Mailchimp do whatever they want? They're a company with their own set of rules and priorities. Seems fine to me as long as they disclose it to customers.

I think those are two separate issues: Google has positioned itself to be the lifeline of the open internet and have profited tremendously from it. With that comes a responsibility to not censor content. Otherwise it stops being the "open" internet and becomes another walled garden with dubious rules that can change at any moment (e.g. Facebook). Mailchimp can do whatever they want, I agree, but as their customer I w…

Do you let anyone post under your account name? If I were to ask for your credentials to your HN account, would you give them to me and let me say whatever I want under it?

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

#134

Post by s73v3r_ »

Karunamon wrote: post #93
simias wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely can't fathom this argument at all and it seems rather widespread in these parts. For one thing I'll keep strongly objecting to the use of "censorship" for something as mundane as this. It's a strong word, a private company saying that you can't do X or Y on its own turf is not censorship. If you tag the walls of a McDonalds and you get thrown out it's not censorship. If you're using Mailchimp and they say…

It's a strong word, a private company saying that you can't do X or Y on its own turf is not censorship It absolutely is censorship. They may have every legal right to do it, but at the end of the day, they are restricting broad categories of speech, it's censorship, end of story. Furthermore, "your own turf" never is and never has been a carte blanche to do anything you want - certain regulations and obligations, bo…

It can only be censorship if you believe that people do not have the right to choose who they do business with.

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

#135

Post by simias »

hanbura wrote: post #82
simias wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email is an open infrastructure, if an consensus emerges among the existing players not to allow emails about X then you're free to start your own email service what will feel the gap. If you can't make it stick then the holy free market has spoken. Wikipedia is currently blocked in Turkey. That's censorship. Mailchimp won't let you use them to send emails about Bitcoin. That's a minor inconvenience.

If every email service prohibits a topic, that's indistinguishable from state censorship. I fail to see how only one is bad and the other isn't. The free market isn't of any help here either. Censorship is about stopping the spread of information and ideas. What's not known can't affect the free market.

It's distinguishable because nothing stops you from starting a new email service if you want to. You're not going to end up in jail if you start an emailing service for Blockchain projects. In many countries journalists and authors do end up in jail (or worse) because of actual censorship.

If nobody wants to host your content then maybe the problem isn't them, maybe it's you. And if it's not then there's a business opportunity waiting for you right here.

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

#136

Post by xtracto »

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

I'd like to second SendGrid.

In my previous job, we were using MailChimp until they decided that for some reason some of the communication (the campaings that are created manually via their interface) with our clients was spam. They did not give us any warning but one day they blocked everything, including the API (mandrillapp), which our system was using to send email as part of our process.

We moved our mail lists to SendGrid while decoupling the API, using AWS SNS for that.

I hate companies that treat you as if they were doing you a favour (we were paying customers, and worse that they don't sit down and talk to understand what is the situation. No business sense at all.

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

#137

Post by massaman_yams »

freewilly1040 wrote: post #129
massaman_yams wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You might be surprised how specific Gmail's filtering ability is - inbox/spam delivery for an identical message can be different for each recipient, based on individual behavior towards similar messages. Gmail is more than capable of blocking an individual Mailchimp sender that's spamming while leaving the rest unaffected.

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

#138

Post by mvindahl »

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

I would imagine that if all the crypto people moved to some smaller email service with a more lenient policy, this service would end up with far bigger deliverability and blacklisting problems than Mailchimp ever had.

From here, it may be possible to kick the bucket down the road a couple of times but basically I think it's game over.

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

#140

Post by eterps »

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

See https://alternativeto.net/software/mailchimp/ for a list of alternatives.
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