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This is a great example in how not to write an announcement to your customers. Start with positive language, deliver a huge blow, make no apology.

coldelectrons 6y ago
Introduce yourself. Establish a connection or rapport with the audience. Set expectations. "My name is Inigo Montoya..."
- ironmagma 6y ago
  The expectations that the blog sets up are in the positive mood. It should really start off with, "This is going to really suck, everyone, and in fact it might be the worst thing you heard about this year. Just kidding, it's slightly better, but...". But instead it builds up positive expectations. Anyone sufficiently jaded just has to fight the urge to believe this fluff while desperately scanning to find the place where they tear it all down and tell you what is happening with the product, after needlessly building up for paragraphs at a time.
floatingatoll 6y ago
I think this announcement is fine. No language on earth would make free users happy, it gets right down to business, and it includes a clear and specific table showing what’s being changed. There isn’t really anything else to be done - an apology would just be decried as throwaway corporate speak or as mocking the helpless.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  You can't make them happy, so at least be honest. The lede is buried, and user-blaming language like "We need to eliminate both the confusion and the misuse that exists within our offerings," implying that the users did something wrong, when it was in fact the company that got the pricing wrong. Not to mention the misleading infographic with the checkmarks (which displays the important information in a more dim, harder-to-notice color and displays old outdated information in bold black which goes top to bottom) or the interstitial with the dark pattern button that says "I don't want to save 40%" in order to dismiss.
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    I imagine there's a lot of 'free' users that are using the product to make a significant profit, as they seemed to quite precisely be cutting out the steps where they are part of a 'toolchain' and not just an 'all-in-one basics' solution. They're clearly also worried about the cloud costs that were incurred by the free users in various respects, which suggests that too many people were not paying for it vs. costs. That confusion, that misuse, is clearly their own fault for allowing it to happen at all. The quote you provide doesn't read as user-blaming to me, so I'm not sure how to respond to that point.

coldelectrons 6y ago

Introduce yourself. Establish a connection or rapport with the audience. Set expectations. "My name is Inigo Montoya..."

ironmagma 6y ago
The expectations that the blog sets up are in the positive mood. It should really start off with, "This is going to really suck, everyone, and in fact it might be the worst thing you heard about this year. Just kidding, it's slightly better, but...". But instead it builds up positive expectations. Anyone sufficiently jaded just has to fight the urge to believe this fluff while desperately scanning to find the place where they tear it all down and tell you what is happening with the product, after needlessly building up for paragraphs at a time.

floatingatoll 6y ago

I think this announcement is fine. No language on earth would make free users happy, it gets right down to business, and it includes a clear and specific table showing what’s being changed. There isn’t really anything else to be done - an apology would just be decried as throwaway corporate speak or as mocking the helpless.

ironmagma 6y ago
You can't make them happy, so at least be honest. The lede is buried, and user-blaming language like "We need to eliminate both the confusion and the misuse that exists within our offerings," implying that the users did something wrong, when it was in fact the company that got the pricing wrong. Not to mention the misleading infographic with the checkmarks (which displays the important information in a more dim, harder-to-notice color and displays old outdated information in bold black which goes top to bottom) or the interstitial with the dark pattern button that says "I don't want to save 40%" in order to dismiss.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  I imagine there's a lot of 'free' users that are using the product to make a significant profit, as they seemed to quite precisely be cutting out the steps where they are part of a 'toolchain' and not just an 'all-in-one basics' solution. They're clearly also worried about the cloud costs that were incurred by the free users in various respects, which suggests that too many people were not paying for it vs. costs. That confusion, that misuse, is clearly their own fault for allowing it to happen at all. The quote you provide doesn't read as user-blaming to me, so I'm not sure how to respond to that point.