Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

blog.zulip.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 267 posts

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#71

Post by tormeh »

CUViper wrote: post #67
sigstoat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is well written, but it doesn’t really explain how or why Zulip will maintain its free plan forever. i don't see anywhere zulip has made that claim, merely that it is currently free. in fact, it explains that they're careful about what promises they make, so that they don't end up having to break them.

In the conclusion: > We fully expect to continue offering the Zulip Cloud Free plan indefinitely,

That merely says that there is no plan that the writer knows of to pull the plug on you. And indefinitely is a duration of currently undefined length, not infinite length.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#72

Post by Gigachad »

db48x wrote: post #55
nimbius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like if its 2023 and you're still gullible enough to fall for "free forever" bait and switch offerings from cloud providers then we need to have a frank discussion on neofeudalist late stage capitalism where a mainstay of its many successes in the digital realm is to literally trick you into consuming a product and pretend like it never happened.

It’s just straight–up fraud. People have been defrauding each other for a while now; I don’t think we need to invent hypotheticals like “neofeudalist late stage capitalism” to explain that behavior.

Also the old saying “if it’s too good to be true …”

If something costs money to someone else and doesn’t generate them any returns, you can expect it’s likely you won’t continue to receive the free service forever.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#73

Post by pikdum »

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior.

If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#74

Post by daniel_iversen »

jxf wrote: post #2

This blog post is from the "never let a competitor's mistake go unnoticed" school of thought.

Don’t disagree, but even more important I like that it’s being called out. It’s the word “forever” in “free forever” that really irks me - very likely marketing was lazy (and deceitful, really, when you think about it) and calls it “free forever” without the business having had real serious conversations (even at the board level) about using a word like that and what it means to the business strategy. I’m not saying people don’t make mistakes but I’m also betting companies just sling words like that out there without a second thought.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#75

Post by Dalewyn »

stanmancan wrote: post #5
jxf wrote: post #2

This blog post is from the "never let a competitor's mistake go unnoticed" school of thought.

Not sure I totally agree. Capitalizing on a competitors mistake is kind of slimy; calling out their poor business practices is not. Users will invest their time and resources into using your product based on the promise that it’s free forever. Changing your mind later puts the burden on them to figure out how to move forward. Even if I was a free user and I was considering a paid plan that type of dishonesty would ma…

>Users will invest their time and resources into using your product based on the promise that it’s free forever.

Unless you're a naive new entrant into the real world who doesn't know better, it's on you if you're fooled into thinking something is "free forever".

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#76

Post by sigstoat »

CUViper wrote: post #67
sigstoat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is well written, but it doesn’t really explain how or why Zulip will maintain its free plan forever. i don't see anywhere zulip has made that claim, merely that it is currently free. in fact, it explains that they're careful about what promises they make, so that they don't end up having to break them.

In the conclusion: > We fully expect to continue offering the Zulip Cloud Free plan indefinitely,

which isn't a promise that it will be "free forever". in the context of the rest of the article, it's not even an attempt to mislead you into thinking it will be free forever. though it is apparently enough to base willful misunderstanding on.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#77

Post by jarym »

pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

Not trying to be funny, but if you're on a 'free forever' plan and happy with it there's already a close-to-0% chance they'll get any money off you...

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#78

Post by maleldil »

jarym wrote: post #77
pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

Not trying to be funny, but if you're on a 'free forever' plan and happy with it there's already a close-to-0% chance they'll get any money off you...

There could still be word of mouth that leads to paying customers. Or circumstances change and the paid plans are worth it for previously free customers.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#79

Post by juliusgeo »

jarym wrote: post #77
pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

Not trying to be funny, but if you're on a 'free forever' plan and happy with it there's already a close-to-0% chance they'll get any money off you...

Most of my recommendations for services to use come from my friends who have either used that service on a free plan, or a paid plan. It matters very little in terms of the network effects of their service whether or not you're on a "free plan". See GitHub's free subscriptions of CoPilot for open source contributors.

Re: When “free forever” means “free for the next 4 months”

#80

Post by pikdum »

jarym wrote: post #77
pikdum wrote: post #73

If a company gets rid of my free forever plan with them, there is a 0% chance that they're getting any money or positive word of mouth from me in the future. It's incredibly scummy behavior. If you're not willing to actually offer it forever, just call it a free plan instead of lying about it.

Not trying to be funny, but if you're on a 'free forever' plan and happy with it there's already a close-to-0% chance they'll get any money off you...

Probably not from my personal use, no.

But for company use, I'd rather pay for something I'm happy with using personally or have had good experiences with in the past, rather than rolling the dice on something unknown.

Post reply on HN