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Not sure how much it is about entitlement, probably rather users angry at the bait & switch. Companies offering the world for free, getting users to expend the
by bearmode 4y ago
Not sure how much it is about entitlement, probably rather users angry at the bait & switch. Companies offering the world for free, getting users to expend the effort to move to their service, and then suddenly changing the entire structure and expecting users to pay.
If you offer a service for free, you should be able to keep offering that for free (with paid upgrades instead of removing functionality from a free tier/removing the free tier entirely).
- zigzag312 4y agoThis. The problem is companies (ab)using a free tier in order to lure a huge amount of users into using their product and when they get enough of them, they change the free tier to be almost unusable, trying to force as many of free users as possible to convert to paying customers. It's not that users are entitled to free products, but companies using dishonest marketing of a free tier for their own gain. Free users may not be paying costumers, but they do invest their time into the product (that they probably wouldn't have otherwise), and more importantly, they spread the word about the product. Imagine the amount of advertising money the company would have to spend in order to reach as many customers as they have with the help of free users. If you can't afford to offer your free tier permanently, be upfront about it. As there are business models that can afford permanent free tier and users can't know which kind of free is your offer. Don't dishonestly use free users for marketing purposes and dump them when you don't need them anymore.
- Lutger 4y agoWhy? Why should a company do that?
- bearmode 4y agoTo avoid garnering a ton of bad press & ill will from users who now feel like you've deceived them, and that they've wasted their time on your service.