4 ms·

Terrible analogy. The email account is not an investment. You can't "sell" your account. Your father used it for years, and now he's getting his money back.

Terrible analogy. The email account is not an investment. You can't "sell" your account. Your father used it for years, and now he's getting his money back. And he has alternatives, he can use gmail, etc.

deong 9y ago
Sure, but the law doesn't care whether you sold me something as an investment or not. It cares that you sold me something under terms that were legal in the place where the transaction was made, that the contract was entered into voluntarily by adults with legal authority to make decisions, etc. What you're describing is perfectly true under the terms of service of pretty much any email provider, but that's only because the contracts governing your interaction with those providers are written in a way that makes it true. Fastmail's lifetime plan has a different contract, and under that contract, it's simply not true that you're paying to use the account temporarily. You're paying to have perpetual access to that account as long as the company exists as a legal partner to the contract they signed.
delhanty 9y ago
Actually a lifetime (of my father) service contract is very much like an one particular investment, that is an inflation adjusted annuity. FastMail is no more free to terminate the lifetime service contract while my father still lives than the pension company is free to stop paying his annuity backed pension.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Another terrible analogy. It's not an annuity at all. You're paying for a service. You pay $15 for "lifetime" email. Your father paid less than $1/year for email service. Stop trying to make it seem like Fastmail owes you money. Quit your bellyaching and move him to gmail.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
That's not how contracts work. If you buy a vase on ebay for $1 because you think it looks nice, and the current owner agrees to that sale, it's yours. Suppose they then find out it's worth a million. The seller cannot unilaterally reverse the contract and "give you your money back". The vase is yours, they owe you the vase, and you owe them a dollar, that's it. If they wanted to own the vase, they would have to make a contract with its owner (that is, you) under terms that the owner is willing to agree to to transfer ownership.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Another terrible analogy. They are providing a service. Not giving something away that has monetary value. A 16 MB email service is nowhere near considered valuable when Gmail offers gigabytes.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    Oh, so you can get gmail without surveillance and without advertisements without paying for it? Would you mind pointing me to the offer?

deong 9y ago

Sure, but the law doesn't care whether you sold me something as an investment or not. It cares that you sold me something under terms that were legal in the place where the transaction was made, that the contract was entered into voluntarily by adults with legal authority to make decisions, etc. What you're describing is perfectly true under the terms of service of pretty much any email provider, but that's only because the contracts governing your interaction with those providers are written in a way that makes it true. Fastmail's lifetime plan has a different contract, and under that contract, it's simply not true that you're paying to use the account temporarily. You're paying to have perpetual access to that account as long as the company exists as a legal partner to the contract they signed.

delhanty 9y ago

Actually a lifetime (of my father) service contract is very much like an one particular investment, that is an inflation adjusted annuity. FastMail is no more free to terminate the lifetime service contract while my father still lives than the pension company is free to stop paying his annuity backed pension.

pfarnsworth 9y ago
Another terrible analogy. It's not an annuity at all. You're paying for a service. You pay $15 for "lifetime" email. Your father paid less than $1/year for email service. Stop trying to make it seem like Fastmail owes you money. Quit your bellyaching and move him to gmail.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago

That's not how contracts work. If you buy a vase on ebay for $1 because you think it looks nice, and the current owner agrees to that sale, it's yours. Suppose they then find out it's worth a million. The seller cannot unilaterally reverse the contract and "give you your money back". The vase is yours, they owe you the vase, and you owe them a dollar, that's it. If they wanted to own the vase, they would have to make a contract with its owner (that is, you) under terms that the owner is willing to agree to to transfer ownership.

pfarnsworth 9y ago
Another terrible analogy. They are providing a service. Not giving something away that has monetary value. A 16 MB email service is nowhere near considered valuable when Gmail offers gigabytes.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  Oh, so you can get gmail without surveillance and without advertisements without paying for it? Would you mind pointing me to the offer?