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Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

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Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#21

Post by tempodox »

Jolter wrote: post #18
johnklos wrote: post #9

Organization with hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue and spend can't maintain servers? I would wonder if this is really something much simpler: an excuse to make things read-only, while implying that people really should give them money if they want things to work. Really, I can't lose any more respect for Mozilla at this point. It's all gone.

If you have ever done subcontracting work or been a supplier to a major automotive corps, you’ll know the can be extremely late to pay at times. They use their muscle to get a free line of credit from their suppliers by simply demanding to get an extra 30 days on their deadline every month. Not saying this is Mozilla’s policy, just pointing out it may be an accident or it may be a lack of funds, or something entirely…

I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected. But I do not trust coincidences.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#22

Post by Symbiote »

benjojo12 wrote: post #12
neilv wrote: post #8

Why is a SaaS locking out a fairly high-profile customer like this, and publicly airing B2B accounts-receivable drama, to the customer's community? How big can the bill be, for something you could run on a 20 year-old PC? Given the strange coincidence with the social media outrage over TOU fiasco, I don't know who to be scratching my puzzled head at here.

It's a pretty good way to get the bill paid to be honest I also run a B2B SaaS and I have found that over time the customers who I think are going to be terrible for paying, typically tend to be very good at paying and the customers who I think are going to be very good for paying (in that they have good standing in the community in things like that) tend to be pretty bad at paying on time (and with NET30 and all) Ul…

We've been overdue on something like this, but a public notice would have left us moving to a competitor.

It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Do you read (do you even receive?) out-of-office replies to your invoices?

Of course it shouldn't be on an individual's email, but with annual billing it's easy to overlook.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#23

Post by ashoeafoot »

johnklos wrote: post #9

Organization with hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue and spend can't maintain servers? I would wonder if this is really something much simpler: an excuse to make things read-only, while implying that people really should give them money if they want things to work. Really, I can't lose any more respect for Mozilla at this point. It's all gone.

I guess the money stops flowing when you di not need a monopoly fig leave, because the monopoly busters are exited.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#24

Post by vasco »

dijit wrote: post #5
StressedDev wrote: post #3

I suspect the moral of the story is devops and operations staff need to keep all payments, secret rotations, certificate expirations, etc. on a calendar so no one forgets to pay the bills. I hope the employee who forgot to pay the bill learns from this.

Ops is an interesting domain, nobody knows what they do until they don't do it; so everyone wants the jobs to disappear, and when they do it's fun what happens. I'm beyond certain that someone will reply "use a cloud provider", which is ironic, as cloud providers just concentrate these kinds of ops people and charge you through the nose (often an order of magnitude more in my experience) than having people responsibl…

If a technical person is even close to involved with paying for a SaaS Discourse forum hosting something is extremely wrong. This is part of business operations or finance. This is already a "cloud provider". It's the same as paying for Google Workspace or an HR platform.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#25

Post by hahn-kev »

Symbiote wrote: post #22
benjojo12 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty good way to get the bill paid to be honest I also run a B2B SaaS and I have found that over time the customers who I think are going to be terrible for paying, typically tend to be very good at paying and the customers who I think are going to be very good for paying (in that they have good standing in the community in things like that) tend to be pretty bad at paying on time (and with NET30 and all) Ul…

We've been overdue on something like this, but a public notice would have left us moving to a competitor. It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Do you read (do you even receive?) out-of-office replies to your invoices? Of course it shouldn't be on an individual's email, but with annual billing it's easy to overlook.

IMO if I lose someone's business because they can't pay the bill... Good? Right?

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#26

Post by msh »

benjojo12 wrote: post #12
neilv wrote: post #8

Why is a SaaS locking out a fairly high-profile customer like this, and publicly airing B2B accounts-receivable drama, to the customer's community? How big can the bill be, for something you could run on a 20 year-old PC? Given the strange coincidence with the social media outrage over TOU fiasco, I don't know who to be scratching my puzzled head at here.

It's a pretty good way to get the bill paid to be honest I also run a B2B SaaS and I have found that over time the customers who I think are going to be terrible for paying, typically tend to be very good at paying and the customers who I think are going to be very good for paying (in that they have good standing in the community in things like that) tend to be pretty bad at paying on time (and with NET30 and all) Ul…

Suspending a service is one thing. Advertising that it’s due to non paid bills is inexcusable.

Also consider how many bridges you would burn if it’s in error. Or it’s a disputed payment.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#27

Post by msh »

hahn-kev wrote: post #25
Symbiote wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been overdue on something like this, but a public notice would have left us moving to a competitor. It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Do you read (do you even receive?) out-of-office replies to your invoices? Of course it shouldn't be on an individual's email, but with annual billing it's easy to overlook.

IMO if I lose someone's business because they can't pay the bill... Good? Right?

Is this a case of can’t pay? It sounds more like a error. So you would loose out on future revenue.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#28

Post by jbirer »

msh wrote: post #26
benjojo12 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty good way to get the bill paid to be honest I also run a B2B SaaS and I have found that over time the customers who I think are going to be terrible for paying, typically tend to be very good at paying and the customers who I think are going to be very good for paying (in that they have good standing in the community in things like that) tend to be pretty bad at paying on time (and with NET30 and all) Ul…

Suspending a service is one thing. Advertising that it’s due to non paid bills is inexcusable. Also consider how many bridges you would burn if it’s in error. Or it’s a disputed payment.

This is probably how people who never pay their debts think.

"It's ok if I am late with the bill, they will feel bad for me and never risk me reputation damage by airing out my debts".

But in the absence of a sense of responsibility or obligation, shame might be the only thing that might work to make them fulfill their obligations.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#29

Post by jbirer »

Symbiote wrote: post #22
benjojo12 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty good way to get the bill paid to be honest I also run a B2B SaaS and I have found that over time the customers who I think are going to be terrible for paying, typically tend to be very good at paying and the customers who I think are going to be very good for paying (in that they have good standing in the community in things like that) tend to be pretty bad at paying on time (and with NET30 and all) Ul…

We've been overdue on something like this, but a public notice would have left us moving to a competitor. It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Do you read (do you even receive?) out-of-office replies to your invoices? Of course it shouldn't be on an individual's email, but with annual billing it's easy to overlook.

Bad e-mail management is not a responsibility on my part, and a disorganized client moving to another company is not really a threat either.

Re: Mozilla site down due to "overdue hosting payments" [fixed]

#30

Post by suslik »

Jolter wrote: post #18
johnklos wrote: post #9

Organization with hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue and spend can't maintain servers? I would wonder if this is really something much simpler: an excuse to make things read-only, while implying that people really should give them money if they want things to work. Really, I can't lose any more respect for Mozilla at this point. It's all gone.

If you have ever done subcontracting work or been a supplier to a major automotive corps, you’ll know the can be extremely late to pay at times. They use their muscle to get a free line of credit from their suppliers by simply demanding to get an extra 30 days on their deadline every month. Not saying this is Mozilla’s policy, just pointing out it may be an accident or it may be a lack of funds, or something entirely…

I’ve done things similar to this as a purchasing manager (in a different industry). Providers sometimes required a payment schedule that was critical to their cashflow (and I did feel very sympathetic), but I had to pressure them into a very unfavorable schedule - otherwise the contract would never be approved by finance. Small companies sometimes had hard time understanding that there were rules I simply couldn’t bend, and it was rather unpleasant at times.

However, that was always sorted out during negotiations.

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