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Because not everyone using a mailing list service is technically capable of doing this, or understands why it's even necessary? I never used MailChimp but if I

Because not everyone using a mailing list service is technically capable of doing this, or understands why it's even necessary? I never used MailChimp but if I did then I would assume that the mailing lists I built with their service would be 99.999% secure, and that I'd always be able to access it even if they went out of business. Reading this thread with many users claiming similar experiences is quite frankly shocking.

alfanick 8y ago
> I never used MailChimp but if I did then I would assume that the mailing lists I built with their service would be 99.999% secure, and that I'd always be able to access it even if they went out of business. You're saying you never used service X, yet you would absolutely trust service X and assume that even when service X is out-of-businness, you can access data related to you. That's very surprising to read, I'm exactly the opposite - own your data, don't trust any service, they always can go away, at any random moment. This makes me wonder, what is more popular? Absolute trust or -ENOTRUST?
- abc-xyz 8y ago
  Yes, because their entire business model is built around email marketing, and despite not using MailChimp then they're as far as I know the biggest player. Give me a couple of hours and then I can guarantee 99.999999% durability for almost no cost through Google/Amazon services. I would be very sad if MailChimp can't gaurantee the same. Edit since I can't reply: We're talking about durability of their mailing lists, not uptime. At least that's my intention. That Google/Amazon or MailChimp might experience downtime doesn't have any impact on the durability promises. I would also expect MailChimp (rather than all their customers) to do regular backups.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    Uptime for themselves != Uptime for customers You absolutely have to consider TOS, account disablement, and other service provider-caused downtime. And from what I've seen, no uptime calculation adds in account issues like this. And I'd really like to see how fast their resolution is.
cmorgan31 8y ago
What drives the assumption that their mailing lists would always be available to you even if they went out of business or that they are almost perfectly secure? Is it due to standards set by large companies or just an idealized desire?
- abc-xyz 8y ago
  Because I assume they use Google/Amazon cloud services which are designed for 99.99999999% durability, just as I assume they often make backups (it's not like it would be expensive for them to backup mailing lists every hour or so). If they went out of business then I would also assume they would give customers at least several months to export their mailing lists. Edit: for some reason I'm not allowed to post new comments (presumably because of the downvotes to my other comments), so I'll just reply here: Would it be naive/fraudulent to promise the same durability as the storage service you're using? After all you're just feeding the data to their service through their API. I of course wouldn't promise this kind of up-time, but once the data is successfully saved then I fail to see why it would be wrong to make such claims. Assuming you also made regular backups of the data you feed to their services (which I certainly hope MailChimp do) then you can be even more confident that the data won't be lost. If Google/Amazon banned the accounts storing the mailing lists then I'm sure it could be recovered, especially by a company of MailChimps size.
  - cmorgan31 8y ago
    Thanks for answering! I think your perspective is becoming more common. It's not like MailChimp is a start-up, so these assumptions aren't inherently crazy.
    - megous 8y ago
      At some point people started expecting unreasonable things from random free services on the internet. I still think it's ridiculous. I hope that in the future, schools will also teach some basics of computer hygiene in IT classes, and how to behave on the internet. Things like what internet services are, why backups are important, and how to practically do them, how to evaluate risks when communicating on the internet, how people are harmed on the internet (typical scams, phishing, running untrusted programs, ransomware,...), what privacy is on the internet, how to choose passwords, etc.

alfanick 8y ago

> I never used MailChimp but if I did then I would assume that the mailing lists I built with their service would be 99.999% secure, and that I'd always be able to access it even if they went out of business. You're saying you never used service X, yet you would absolutely trust service X and assume that even when service X is out-of-businness, you can access data related to you. That's very surprising to read, I'm exactly the opposite - own your data, don't trust any service, they always can go away, at any random moment. This makes me wonder, what is more popular? Absolute trust or -ENOTRUST?

abc-xyz 8y ago
Yes, because their entire business model is built around email marketing, and despite not using MailChimp then they're as far as I know the biggest player. Give me a couple of hours and then I can guarantee 99.999999% durability for almost no cost through Google/Amazon services. I would be very sad if MailChimp can't gaurantee the same. Edit since I can't reply: We're talking about durability of their mailing lists, not uptime. At least that's my intention. That Google/Amazon or MailChimp might experience downtime doesn't have any impact on the durability promises. I would also expect MailChimp (rather than all their customers) to do regular backups.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Uptime for themselves != Uptime for customers You absolutely have to consider TOS, account disablement, and other service provider-caused downtime. And from what I've seen, no uptime calculation adds in account issues like this. And I'd really like to see how fast their resolution is.

cmorgan31 8y ago

What drives the assumption that their mailing lists would always be available to you even if they went out of business or that they are almost perfectly secure? Is it due to standards set by large companies or just an idealized desire?

abc-xyz 8y ago
Because I assume they use Google/Amazon cloud services which are designed for 99.99999999% durability, just as I assume they often make backups (it's not like it would be expensive for them to backup mailing lists every hour or so). If they went out of business then I would also assume they would give customers at least several months to export their mailing lists. Edit: for some reason I'm not allowed to post new comments (presumably because of the downvotes to my other comments), so I'll just reply here: Would it be naive/fraudulent to promise the same durability as the storage service you're using? After all you're just feeding the data to their service through their API. I of course wouldn't promise this kind of up-time, but once the data is successfully saved then I fail to see why it would be wrong to make such claims. Assuming you also made regular backups of the data you feed to their services (which I certainly hope MailChimp do) then you can be even more confident that the data won't be lost. If Google/Amazon banned the accounts storing the mailing lists then I'm sure it could be recovered, especially by a company of MailChimps size.
- cmorgan31 8y ago
  Thanks for answering! I think your perspective is becoming more common. It's not like MailChimp is a start-up, so these assumptions aren't inherently crazy.
  - megous 8y ago
    At some point people started expecting unreasonable things from random free services on the internet. I still think it's ridiculous. I hope that in the future, schools will also teach some basics of computer hygiene in IT classes, and how to behave on the internet. Things like what internet services are, why backups are important, and how to practically do them, how to evaluate risks when communicating on the internet, how people are harmed on the internet (typical scams, phishing, running untrusted programs, ransomware,...), what privacy is on the internet, how to choose passwords, etc.