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Really? I'm rather gobsmacked to find someone defending this.

phinnaeus 6y ago
I think OP comes across as a bit of an asshole. They send a fairly confrontational email and didn't even wait for a response before taking their dirty laundry to Twitter. I disagree with Ghost taking down the site without more discussion, but I do think their original practice of giving the user the benefit of the doubt and allowing the use of upgraded features without upfront payment to be generally good. I think OP's complaint could probably be addressed through the UI (though I don't know what that looks like presently).
ColinWright 6y ago
I'd be interested to hear more ... why do you find this so surprising? People running businesses are constantly told "Keep good customers, identify and get rid of toxic ones." That appears to be exactly what the CEO has done here. As I say elsewhere, rightly or wrongly he has decided that this customer will be more trouble than they are worth, so he has refunded his money and terminated the service. To me the indefensible thing is not returning the customers data, but other than this, why do you find it so unreasonable that a vendor should choose to terminate a service? It seems to be in the Ts and Cs of every (nearly) service I use. So on that basis, can you explain why you think the CEOs behaviour is indefensible?
- capableweb 6y ago
  > "Keep good customers, identify and get rid of toxic ones." This quote right here doesn't mean that if someone is saying "you have a good service" or "you have a terrible service" once is "good customer" vs "toxic customer". One message doesn't allow you to extrapolate the full situation, what if the user was simply having a bad day? Now, if you have a user that constantly is being a drain on customer support or otherwise ruins the business, sure, go ahead. But just because you send one email about the pricing and bitch a bit on Twitter, you get your service terminated? That's super petty, and not at all what I would expect of a company like Ghost.
  - vntok 6y ago
    Customers who immediately try to raise a mob on social media whenever they encounter the slightest issue are toxic customers, there's no way around it. There should be a list of such customers for companies to filter them out of their business when possible, ideally at signup. I know multiple small companies that would gladly pay for this service. Market for a new startup?
    - Talanes 6y ago
      Blame all the big corporations who provide minimal customer service through anything except getting their attention on Twitter.
  - ColinWright 6y ago
    I think the CEO stepped in and made a judgement that the customer was not going to be worth it. I'm not saying the call was the right one. Everyone here seems to think I believe the CEO acted perfectly correctly and that I'm defending him. I don't, and I'm not. I'm saying both parties come out of this looking bad, but I can at least understand the CEOs actions, and even if I don't actually approve of them, I have some sympathy.
  - ColinWright 6y ago
    BTW: I suspect we are not far apart here, the difference might be in the nuance. We both believe the termination without warning was petty, we both believe that there are such things as "bad" customers and "toxic" customers. We both believe that both parties behaved badly. The question is whether either or both deserve any sympathy. But more importantly ... what lessons should we take from this? * As a customer? * As a provider?
    - capableweb 6y ago
      I see. I think your comment which includes "and then I have, on occasion, refunded people, returned their data, and terminated their service." makes it seem like you have acted the same way as Ghosts CEO did here, terminating the service without asking if that's what the user wants before, and you were fine with acting in that way, but seems I misunderstood you. I have personally no interest in figuring out if anyone deserves sympathy here, I simply want to make sure that other founders and CEOs reading HN don't believe that terminating someones service willy nilly is perfectly fine, because complaining once on Twitter makes you a "toxic" user.

I think OP comes across as a bit of an asshole. They send a fairly confrontational email and didn't even wait for a response before taking their dirty laundry to Twitter. I disagree with Ghost taking down the site without more discussion, but I do think their original practice of giving the user the benefit of the doubt and allowing the use of upgraded features without upfront payment to be generally good. I think OP's complaint could probably be addressed through the UI (though I don't know what that looks like presently).

ColinWright 6y ago

I'd be interested to hear more ... why do you find this so surprising? People running businesses are constantly told "Keep good customers, identify and get rid of toxic ones." That appears to be exactly what the CEO has done here. As I say elsewhere, rightly or wrongly he has decided that this customer will be more trouble than they are worth, so he has refunded his money and terminated the service. To me the indefensible thing is not returning the customers data, but other than this, why do you find it so unreasonable that a vendor should choose to terminate a service? It seems to be in the Ts and Cs of every (nearly) service I use. So on that basis, can you explain why you think the CEOs behaviour is indefensible?

capableweb 6y ago
> "Keep good customers, identify and get rid of toxic ones." This quote right here doesn't mean that if someone is saying "you have a good service" or "you have a terrible service" once is "good customer" vs "toxic customer". One message doesn't allow you to extrapolate the full situation, what if the user was simply having a bad day? Now, if you have a user that constantly is being a drain on customer support or otherwise ruins the business, sure, go ahead. But just because you send one email about the pricing and bitch a bit on Twitter, you get your service terminated? That's super petty, and not at all what I would expect of a company like Ghost.
- vntok 6y ago
  Customers who immediately try to raise a mob on social media whenever they encounter the slightest issue are toxic customers, there's no way around it. There should be a list of such customers for companies to filter them out of their business when possible, ideally at signup. I know multiple small companies that would gladly pay for this service. Market for a new startup?
  - Talanes 6y ago
    Blame all the big corporations who provide minimal customer service through anything except getting their attention on Twitter.
- ColinWright 6y ago
  I think the CEO stepped in and made a judgement that the customer was not going to be worth it. I'm not saying the call was the right one. Everyone here seems to think I believe the CEO acted perfectly correctly and that I'm defending him. I don't, and I'm not. I'm saying both parties come out of this looking bad, but I can at least understand the CEOs actions, and even if I don't actually approve of them, I have some sympathy.
- ColinWright 6y ago
  BTW: I suspect we are not far apart here, the difference might be in the nuance. We both believe the termination without warning was petty, we both believe that there are such things as "bad" customers and "toxic" customers. We both believe that both parties behaved badly. The question is whether either or both deserve any sympathy. But more importantly ... what lessons should we take from this? * As a customer? * As a provider?
  - capableweb 6y ago
    I see. I think your comment which includes "and then I have, on occasion, refunded people, returned their data, and terminated their service." makes it seem like you have acted the same way as Ghosts CEO did here, terminating the service without asking if that's what the user wants before, and you were fine with acting in that way, but seems I misunderstood you. I have personally no interest in figuring out if anyone deserves sympathy here, I simply want to make sure that other founders and CEOs reading HN don't believe that terminating someones service willy nilly is perfectly fine, because complaining once on Twitter makes you a "toxic" user.