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Off-topic, but I decided to finally make that free account NYT insists on, and NYT returns the error "Please enter a valid email address." It's a @fastmail.com

by jolmg 7y ago

Off-topic, but I decided to finally make that free account NYT insists on, and NYT returns the error "Please enter a valid email address." It's a @fastmail.com address with no weird characters. Anyone else had that trouble before? Even more interesting is that just changing the domain to a personal one that uses one of the new gTLDs makes it work. I would have maybe expected the opposite to happen. Are they blacklisting Fastmail?

mzkply 7y ago
probably, and mailinator
tomcatfish 7y ago
I have had my personal domain (that I manage through Fastmail) that I use almost solely for mail rejected by Carmax before. Emails sent from them just fine, just couldn't use it to sign up.
danso 7y ago
It'd be strange for them (or a third-party customer management service) bother blacklisting Fastmail – isn't Fastmail a paid service (i.e. less likely to be used by freeloaders, or by people making throwaway accounts)? In any case, no matter how much they want to squeeze money out of new users, the NYT has more incentive to not have a super strict blacklist, or overly onerous sign-up process. Signup numbers are still metrics that a company vice president/middle manager can brag about, and NYT's initiative of mandating free registration seems much too new (e.g. as a comparison, they had totally free access for more then a decade, then a leaky paywall for several additional years) for them to already have hard enforcement policies in place.
- jolmg 7y ago
  > It'd be strange for them (or a third-party customer management service) bother blacklisting Fastmail If it's not a blacklist, I think it'd be even stranger for it to be a whitelist, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. mzkply's comment makes me think that it might have to do with Fastmail's email aliases, which is the closest thing they have that's like Mailinator (an email provider that is frequently blacklisted for signups), but I don't think it's similar enough that this makes sense. I agree with everything you said about NYT's incentives, but that leaves the question raised by this experience. I opened up a chat with NYT to ask about it, but I was left waiting for an agent there for an hour before I decided to just close the chat.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Safeway.com won’t let me use an email address @pobox.com. I have no earthly idea why and their support is untrained to discuss it, but they have server-side tests that are rejecting it.
tobib 7y ago
I had the same issue yesterday signing up in the McDonald's app. Please don't judge.
- aaron695 7y ago
  > Please don't judge. McDonalds makes some of the worlds most amazing food, in one of the worlds most amazing restaurants, why would we judge? To not be part of that, and to not understand that, would be living a hermit experience, which is interesting in itself, but you certainly could not claim to have any basic understanding of the world if you've never even installed a Fast Food app.
  - orf 7y ago
    I’ve never installed a “fast food app”, do I not have a “basic understanding of the world”? Or are you being completely sarcastic.
    - aaron695 7y ago
      Not sarcastic. McDonald USA app alone has 10,000,000 - 50,000,000 downloads. Why would you think it's ok to be ignorant on the basic way 100 of millions order their food? I assume you are not in IT, since these apps are the cutting edge being in such large markets, but even as being a part of society it's important. Would you be proud of never having been to one opera or never having watched one sport game?
      - mehhh 7y ago
        Since the McDonalds app was downloaded between 10 to 50 million times, its suddenly "the basic way 100 of millions order their food?”? Where are the extra 50+ million users you claim coming from? Am I to believe McDonalds has a 100% retention rate after app installation?
  - craftinator 7y ago
    Surely, you are quite insane to call that a hermit experience. The majority of humanity has not done this. It is the experience of a small minority.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by jolmg 7y ago

mzkply 7y ago

probably, and mailinator

tomcatfish 7y ago

I have had my personal domain (that I manage through Fastmail) that I use almost solely for mail rejected by Carmax before. Emails sent from them just fine, just couldn't use it to sign up.

danso 7y ago

It'd be strange for them (or a third-party customer management service) bother blacklisting Fastmail – isn't Fastmail a paid service (i.e. less likely to be used by freeloaders, or by people making throwaway accounts)? In any case, no matter how much they want to squeeze money out of new users, the NYT has more incentive to not have a super strict blacklist, or overly onerous sign-up process. Signup numbers are still metrics that a company vice president/middle manager can brag about, and NYT's initiative of mandating free registration seems much too new (e.g. as a comparison, they had totally free access for more then a decade, then a leaky paywall for several additional years) for them to already have hard enforcement policies in place.

jolmg 7y ago
> It'd be strange for them (or a third-party customer management service) bother blacklisting Fastmail If it's not a blacklist, I think it'd be even stranger for it to be a whitelist, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. mzkply's comment makes me think that it might have to do with Fastmail's email aliases, which is the closest thing they have that's like Mailinator (an email provider that is frequently blacklisted for signups), but I don't think it's similar enough that this makes sense. I agree with everything you said about NYT's incentives, but that leaves the question raised by this experience. I opened up a chat with NYT to ask about it, but I was left waiting for an agent there for an hour before I decided to just close the chat.
floatingatoll 7y ago
Safeway.com won’t let me use an email address @pobox.com. I have no earthly idea why and their support is untrained to discuss it, but they have server-side tests that are rejecting it.

tobib 7y ago

I had the same issue yesterday signing up in the McDonald's app. Please don't judge.

aaron695 7y ago
> Please don't judge. McDonalds makes some of the worlds most amazing food, in one of the worlds most amazing restaurants, why would we judge? To not be part of that, and to not understand that, would be living a hermit experience, which is interesting in itself, but you certainly could not claim to have any basic understanding of the world if you've never even installed a Fast Food app.
- orf 7y ago
  I’ve never installed a “fast food app”, do I not have a “basic understanding of the world”? Or are you being completely sarcastic.
  - aaron695 7y ago
    Not sarcastic. McDonald USA app alone has 10,000,000 - 50,000,000 downloads. Why would you think it's ok to be ignorant on the basic way 100 of millions order their food? I assume you are not in IT, since these apps are the cutting edge being in such large markets, but even as being a part of society it's important. Would you be proud of never having been to one opera or never having watched one sport game?
    - mehhh 7y ago
      Since the McDonalds app was downloaded between 10 to 50 million times, its suddenly "the basic way 100 of millions order their food?”? Where are the extra 50+ million users you claim coming from? Am I to believe McDonalds has a 100% retention rate after app installation?
- craftinator 7y ago
  Surely, you are quite insane to call that a hermit experience. The majority of humanity has not done this. It is the experience of a small minority.

deleted 7y ago

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