This reeks of a team floundering trying to figure out how to keep a ship from sinking.<p><pre><code> 1. Our "Free" product is now $6000/year ($500/mo)
2. OR give us a link-back
3. OR prepare for a lawyering
</code></pre>
While the response is inflammatory and wonderful for up-vote fodder, I can't imagine any calm, decent person ever taking this tact with a client.<p>There are 17 different emails they could have sent to SupportBee that would have been more constructive than this.<p>I wonder if the Gigya team is too young to know better or if they have back-breaking pressure on them from their investors to turn any sort of profit before they are all taken out to sea and shot.<p>Obviously a stupid response, but really seems to be a response out of pure desperation more than anything.
This is an easy problem - change your API. It creates a built-in way of excluding previous users and, if a bit forcefully, opens lines of communication for users to update their implementations.<p>Legal threats? Good riddance to you. I'd not touch your service if it sent me free money.
I act with the belief that notice by email is not enforceable and I ignore any emails with claims of legal action. I am under no obligation to read email. If it were true that an email serves as legal notice, then process servers would be out of work.
Is there something I'm missing? They discontinued a service. They're not asking for back compensation from when it was discontinued, only from this point on. So "please stop using our service or start paying" seems like a reasonable request.<p>I typically expect an "its their buisness, their prerogative" type of response here on HN, how is this situation any different?<p>Because the notice came by email? I'm sure if the first suportbee heard from them was a cease-and-deist letter in certified mail everyone would (rightfully so) point out that it could have much more easily been solved with a few email explaining the change.<p>Because the notice didn't come by enough (or good enough) email? I'll give you that it might be worded a bit strong for a second notice, but this is buisness, not a cuddle factory. Is it really worth getting your panties in this big of a bunch?
It's hard to see how this could <i>not</i> work. /s<p>Do they really think this is a good tactic? It immediately creates tension between them and the client. Even if you paid up or added their link to your page would you trust them in the future? Absolutely not.
I personally can't wait until the freemium model finally dies. It is extraordinarily difficult to pull off despite how popular it is and creates desperate decisions like this.
I have never seen a Terms of Service agreement that would make gigya's behavior seem reasonable or justifiable in this case.<p>Even if their ToS reserved the right to start charging for the service at any time, and explicitly wrote in crazy terms that disclaim them from notification periods, methods of notification, etc., their odds of collecting actual dollars by force are infinitesimal.<p>Sadly, their odds of collecting actual dollars by <i>threat of</i> force might be pretty good. How sticky is their solution?
Ok so hate to point out the obvious, but if you want people to pay for your service ($6000 a year no less) or backlink you.<p>You might need to put in a bit more effort than a single email with a crappy subject line and a follow up email threatening legal measures. Maybe something nice and friendly even?<p>Someone said maybe they are a young team..sounds like the kind of crap corporate dinosaurs would pull to me.
I don't think this is totally unreasonable. From their point of view, they offered a perfectly reasonable alternative to paying, which was ignored.<p>By ignoring (accidentally) the original email, the message sent back could be interpreted as: "We're not implementing your link back, and we're not paying for your service, but we're still going to use it anyway".<p>I'm playing devils advocate here, but there are two ways to look at this.
I expected to come here and see comments lambasting supportbee for being whiny; I am surprised by the tone here. I think a lot (certainly not all) of the problems with the freemium model stem from the users. Just because it's free doesn't mean that it's always going to be free and that you don't have to read and comply with the terms of service.<p>In this case, for one it's not clear to me that we've gotten the whole story. In particular, what were the original terms of service, and how did they change? Did supportbee read and comply with them? The current ToS says explicitly:<p>>"Any notice or other communication to be given hereunder will be in writing and given (x) by Gigya via email (in each case to the address that you provide), (y) a posting on the Gigya Site or (z) by you via email ..."<p>And really, did they have to send any notice at all? If supporbee was failing to comply with the ToS, couldn't Gigya cut off service or take legal action, sans warning?<p>Meanwhile, supportbee doesn't want to put a <i>link</i> on the webpage for a service that they use and benefit from for free, and they throw a small public temper tantrum about it, and we are sympathetic? I'm just surprised. Aren't we overreacting about "legal threats"? Isn't this pretty standard and run of the mill? It could make more of an effort to make you feel good inside, but that's not really enough to make it wrong.
One of the best freemium products I use is github. This discussion made me wonder if they are profitable... (the answer is yes) I dug up this old HN thread: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3593980" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3593980</a><p>Other than the "powered by rackspace" in the footer, it's blessedly ad free.
I don't really see a problem with what they are asking. They want to be paid either in ad links or in subscription fees. The user of the service who wrote the article doesn't wish to do either. He also (in their view) ignored their previous email about it, so the second email is slightly less polite about it and brings up the possibility of legal action.<p>I see how it came to this: he says he didn't notice the previous email. Given that perhaps he should have more sympathy for their position believing their request has gone ignored.<p>I do agree that legal action claims are premature. It's also not very clear if they could prevail in a theft of services case against someone using their service after being asked not to (obviously consent to use the free version has been withdrawn).<p>Clearly it would be a lot simpler to shut down the former client's access than it would be to drive something through the legal system. It could be argued that without properly notifying customers a service is about to be shut down, the customer might have cause to bring legal action against the company, this may be why they are doing notifications and requests rather than just unexpectedly disconnecting.<p>Either party taking legal action at all in such a case is probably a foolish move. Not because it's a reaction to "not monetizing", but because it is unlikely there would be a positive outcome for any of the parties in such an action.<p>Blogging one's (I think) unjustified rage seems as premature as the legal threats.<p>Now looking at another angle. I don't think ad links are worth $6000, but the company says they would be happy with that. It sounds like the $6000 figure might actually be a fake number that they believe will motivate users to choose ad links instead, which is the real goal. The way they have approached this goal is poor. In this case, the user obviously doesn't want to use an ad link. Perhaps he would be willing to pay $100 a month instead of $500? We'll never know because of the way it was handled.<p>Both sides should have given the other side more of a benefit of the doubt until determining the real intentions of the other party.<p>edit: this being vigorously downvoted is pretty amusing.