5 ms·

Lifetime guarantees from companies are wishful thinking, IMHO. The company can get bought out, go bankrupt, etc., and your guarantee is worth nothing.

rorykoehler 7y ago
I find myself not buying lifetime subscriptions to stuff because I find them dishonest.
- gowld 7y ago
  Do you buy the non-lifetime versions from those dishonest companies, or eschew the company entirely?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    It sounds like this was effectively a monthly subscription anyway.
apexalpha 7y ago
On the other hand a lot of companies have these kind of offers when they're trying to reach critical mass. Buying it in the early stages of a companies lifetime can be rewarding. But it is always a gamble, yes.
Angostura 7y ago
It's always a good idea to determine what object is that we are measuring the lifetime off. Is it you, the customer? The offering company, or the 'lifetime of the offer' - which can be any number, as here.
- Kaibeezy 7y ago
  ^^^ CORRECT ^^^ Unless expressly stated, it’s the lifetime of the product or offering, not the buyer’s lifetime. Buy a non-stick frying pan with a “lifetime” guarantee on the coating. 3 years.
tomp 7y ago
Wouldn't all contracts still remain valid if the company got bought out?
- lozenge 7y ago
  Contracts need consideration. Basically if the company stops charging you, they don't owe you anything. This is also backed up by explicit clauses that say this. The exception would be if somebody paid a "lifetime guarantee fee" initially to get that promise of service.
  - gowld 7y ago
    All the money pay since the first day was the consideration. > Basically if the company stops charging you, they don't owe you anything No. If they refund the money you paid, or whatever they can convince a judge is the value of the lifetime guarantee (the difference between TYM and GPM prices forever, converted to Net Present Value), they don't owe you anything. The only right thing to do is to refund all past customer payments, or refund the "value of the lifetime guarantee" (with treble damages for willfully violating the contract?), and add a "lifetime guarantee fee" in future contracts with clear wording to avoud the problem in the future.
    - tomatocracy 7y ago
      If the value of what you got from them is worth more than what you paid, then they can't just refund you what you paid and say "we didn't mean it". They'd be liable for damages for the value to you of the service and you might even be able to get an order for specific performance. A good example of this is the story of the small number of ticket American Airlines sold in the late 80s/early 90s which offered unlimited first-class air travel anywhere in the world for life. They eventually had to resort buying them back from those customers for rather more than had originally been paid for the tickets.
  - close04 7y ago
    And even then you would only get the fee back. Getting any compensation for damages caused by the contract being broken is pretty much impossible in a case like this. It's hard to assign a value to that "lifetime guarantee" especially since the lifetime of this kind of service is determined "reasonably", not the life of the service or the user. It's unlikely that it's longer than 10 years so one might at best be compensated for another 4 years' worth of losing the price guarantee. At maybe $1 per month (assuming this is what they'll charge extra in the future) and given any legal costs this boils down to nothing. I imagine Google will not go further than giving a gift card to those users and call it a day.
patentatt 7y ago
But you assume good faith. Google is not bought out or bankrupt. You would assume that “because a project manager wants a raise” isn’t the cause to cancel products. But Google does.
onion2k 7y ago
The company can get bought out, go bankrupt, etc. Unless I missed some big news, Google hasn't been bought out or gone bankrupt. Those aren't relevant here. If a company offers a lifetime guarantee then it should honor that for the lifetime of the company. Google have chosen not to bother honoring the promise they made in the past, and they should be held to account for that. If you run a business and you choose to make a lifetime offer you don't get to take that back just because you don't want to do it any more.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Probably covered in the terms of service. They decided to 'end' that service and start a 'new' service, which happens to be very similar to the old service, but isn't. How anyone could give google a nickle at this point with their 0 customer support is beyond me.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  If you run a business and you choose to make a lifetime offer you don't get to take that back just because you don't want to do it any more. Tell that to Oregon Scientific, which cancelled the "lifetime" weather updates to my weather device. Tell that Flightradar 24, which disabled the app I paid for, and the only way to get the functionality back is to download its new app and pay for a subscription. If it was disclosed at the time of purchase that I could be cut of at any time, I wouldn't have bought it. Two stories. There are millions more on the internet. I believe that XM radio did something similarly slimy to people who purchased a "lifetime" subscription when the service was starting up and it needed cash. And didn't a bunch of people get their e-books deleted when Microsoft decided to shut down its e-book service? You think you're buying a lifetime of reading, only to find out you were just renting the books.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    Google certainly aren't the first company to screw their users, and they won't be the last. That doesn't make it excusable though. That just means they're as bad as the other companies.

rorykoehler 7y ago

I find myself not buying lifetime subscriptions to stuff because I find them dishonest.

gowld 7y ago
Do you buy the non-lifetime versions from those dishonest companies, or eschew the company entirely?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  It sounds like this was effectively a monthly subscription anyway.

apexalpha 7y ago

On the other hand a lot of companies have these kind of offers when they're trying to reach critical mass. Buying it in the early stages of a companies lifetime can be rewarding. But it is always a gamble, yes.

Angostura 7y ago

It's always a good idea to determine what object is that we are measuring the lifetime off. Is it you, the customer? The offering company, or the 'lifetime of the offer' - which can be any number, as here.

Kaibeezy 7y ago
^^^ CORRECT ^^^ Unless expressly stated, it’s the lifetime of the product or offering, not the buyer’s lifetime. Buy a non-stick frying pan with a “lifetime” guarantee on the coating. 3 years.

tomp 7y ago

Wouldn't all contracts still remain valid if the company got bought out?

lozenge 7y ago
Contracts need consideration. Basically if the company stops charging you, they don't owe you anything. This is also backed up by explicit clauses that say this. The exception would be if somebody paid a "lifetime guarantee fee" initially to get that promise of service.
- gowld 7y ago
  All the money pay since the first day was the consideration. > Basically if the company stops charging you, they don't owe you anything No. If they refund the money you paid, or whatever they can convince a judge is the value of the lifetime guarantee (the difference between TYM and GPM prices forever, converted to Net Present Value), they don't owe you anything. The only right thing to do is to refund all past customer payments, or refund the "value of the lifetime guarantee" (with treble damages for willfully violating the contract?), and add a "lifetime guarantee fee" in future contracts with clear wording to avoud the problem in the future.
  - tomatocracy 7y ago
    If the value of what you got from them is worth more than what you paid, then they can't just refund you what you paid and say "we didn't mean it". They'd be liable for damages for the value to you of the service and you might even be able to get an order for specific performance. A good example of this is the story of the small number of ticket American Airlines sold in the late 80s/early 90s which offered unlimited first-class air travel anywhere in the world for life. They eventually had to resort buying them back from those customers for rather more than had originally been paid for the tickets.
- close04 7y ago
  And even then you would only get the fee back. Getting any compensation for damages caused by the contract being broken is pretty much impossible in a case like this. It's hard to assign a value to that "lifetime guarantee" especially since the lifetime of this kind of service is determined "reasonably", not the life of the service or the user. It's unlikely that it's longer than 10 years so one might at best be compensated for another 4 years' worth of losing the price guarantee. At maybe $1 per month (assuming this is what they'll charge extra in the future) and given any legal costs this boils down to nothing. I imagine Google will not go further than giving a gift card to those users and call it a day.

patentatt 7y ago

But you assume good faith. Google is not bought out or bankrupt. You would assume that “because a project manager wants a raise” isn’t the cause to cancel products. But Google does.

onion2k 7y ago

The company can get bought out, go bankrupt, etc. Unless I missed some big news, Google hasn't been bought out or gone bankrupt. Those aren't relevant here. If a company offers a lifetime guarantee then it should honor that for the lifetime of the company. Google have chosen not to bother honoring the promise they made in the past, and they should be held to account for that. If you run a business and you choose to make a lifetime offer you don't get to take that back just because you don't want to do it any more.

linuxftw 7y ago
Probably covered in the terms of service. They decided to 'end' that service and start a 'new' service, which happens to be very similar to the old service, but isn't. How anyone could give google a nickle at this point with their 0 customer support is beyond me.
reaperducer 7y ago
If you run a business and you choose to make a lifetime offer you don't get to take that back just because you don't want to do it any more. Tell that to Oregon Scientific, which cancelled the "lifetime" weather updates to my weather device. Tell that Flightradar 24, which disabled the app I paid for, and the only way to get the functionality back is to download its new app and pay for a subscription. If it was disclosed at the time of purchase that I could be cut of at any time, I wouldn't have bought it. Two stories. There are millions more on the internet. I believe that XM radio did something similarly slimy to people who purchased a "lifetime" subscription when the service was starting up and it needed cash. And didn't a bunch of people get their e-books deleted when Microsoft decided to shut down its e-book service? You think you're buying a lifetime of reading, only to find out you were just renting the books.
- onion2k 7y ago
  Google certainly aren't the first company to screw their users, and they won't be the last. That doesn't make it excusable though. That just means they're as bad as the other companies.