4 ms·

FogBugz goes dark

156 points by hermitcrab 4y ago

sweettea 4y ago
Fogbugz going pay-only with little notice was discussed previously at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32874311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32874311. A preposterous business practice, and incredibly frustrating. I don't know what can be done about companies acting poorly in this way, though.
- perlgeek 4y ago
  Class-action lawsuit for attempted fraud? (charging money for a free account looks like fraud to me, but IANAL, much less in the US...)
  - buildbot 4y ago
    Yeah came here after reading the article to say, this seems like vanilla fraud.
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  I only just got the first email. I guess they are sending them in batches.
  - juice_bus 4y ago
    I got an email stating I would be charged but I don't even remember what FogBugz is, I couldn't log into any account and no password reset came my way. I really don't want to deal with these charges out of no where.
smackeyacky 4y ago
Back in the 1990s, this was Computer Associates entire business model: buy software that was past it's peak but still had active, paying users; Slap a CA logo on it; start charging through the nose. It's like a protection racket. You need that software, possibly have no good alternatives, and CA knew that. They rarely seemed to put much effort into maintaining anything either. I am surprised it's not a more popular business model now.
- ISL 4y ago
  I think the term of art is "unlocking value".
  - hinkley 4y ago
    We've just found a new dress to stuff Corporate Raiding into. In the 1980's, when you weren't worrying about the someone accidentally starting WWIII, Japan completely unraveling the American Industrial Complex, Dungeons and Dragons turning your kids into satanists, marijuana turning your kids into crackheads (1980's meth epidemic) or treating your child's ADHD not being a sign of responsibility but declaring moral bankruptcy on your terrible parenting skills, you had to worry about your company's hard assets being worth more than your market cap, and a bunch of people staging a hostile takeover so they could sell your company for scrap to release that 'value' that is really your rainy day fund. See also "Other People's Money" starring Danny DeVito as a corporate raider/Pinocchio character.
    - hermitcrab 4y ago
      Maybe the money went out of being a patent troll, so they are trying a new model? Buy a once loved, but now defunct, product and try it on with everyone on their massive mailing list. Maybe enough suckers will pay to make it worthwhile?
- dman 4y ago
  That name brings back memories! Not of the good kind.
- morelisp 4y ago
  I think it's still very popular, but the companies involved do a better job hiding themselves. Idera and Scaleworks aren't super well-known names, sometimes even if you're stuck on one of their subsidiary products.
- ouEight12 4y ago
  There's currently some concern in IT circles that Broadcom is intending something similar to "The CA Business Model" with their vmware acquisition. :(
patio11 4y ago
(I guess this is mostly meditating on what the original builders of software feel when their products, which they poured love and care into, end up in the afterlife of software.) I've sometimes worried about the fate of my businesses after selling them, in the event they pass through many hands, but that's part of the risk of selling. I got an email from a customer of ~10 years ago complaining that they couldn't reach the current CS team (site was down) and asking if I had a direct contact. It, luckily, came back up; it was not obvious to me that it would. On the one hand, frustrating as a founder, but on the other hand, no rational person expects someone to grind out support emails for an employer they haven't worked at in 10 years, right? I get that e.g. a teacher is inconvenienced, but the Unified School District of Middle America is inconvenienced that there are homework assignments not graded right now. and they don't get to call people 10 years into retirement and say "Well you worked here once upon a time and these assignments aren't going to grade themselves."
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  Hi Patrick, Just to be clear, I'm absolutely not blaming Joel or previous FogBugz employees for this state of affairs. But I know I would be deeply hurt if one of my products was bought by someone who tried these sort of dark practices on my one-time customers. Ps/ Well done on the recent 'Planet Money' podcast appearance.
  - richardw 4y ago
    Some colour: Joel made both Andy (hermitcrab) and Patrick (patio11) mods on the old Business of Software forum back in the day. This is a great echo.
    - patio11 4y ago
      The Internet is a very tiny place at times.
  - patio11 4y ago
    Yep, not worried at all, just talking through somewhat complex feelings here. (Andy and I know each other well, folks, if this isn’t obvious from context. Relevantly, we met on Fog Creek’s forums back in 2006 or so.)
abeyer 4y ago
They're not only sending these to active (even if free) users: They've sent payment demands to users who haven't used it but still had long idle free or expired accounts... but they _also_ deleted accounts that had been idle and have no error handling for that, so all the links in the email just give you 500 errors. Classy.
- drcongo 4y ago
  Yep, that's what happened with me.
JeremyBanks 4y ago
dpcan 4y ago
I got the same email and I sent them the same email. Not paying for anything, it was a free tool for a while, I didn’t use it, but loved the company. It is sad to see it crash and burn like this.
Ensorceled 4y ago
I got one of these notices. The first notice was Friday the 16th saying that my free account was being upgraded. Tried to login into my account and got a 500 error. Then Sunday the 18th, I got a notice that my account was being charged for a 5 user license. I had stopped using Fogbugz in 2015 when they sunset or went pay only for Kiln (I forget which happened); so I was a bit surprised. I couldn't login to my account. But I created a support ticket (had to jump through a few hoops since I had a Fogbugz support account already that wouldn't work). Support answered the ticket and assured me that my account was deleted and I will not be charged. I've set a reminder to check my business credit card over the next little while... not that I'm suspicious or anything.
lupire 4y ago
The article mentions moving on to Stack overflow, but Spolsky sold that last year also.
- abeyer 4y ago
  I think glitch is the current incarnation of what has the most claim to having once been Fog Creek. (though afaik Spolsky has minimal if any involvement with it anymore.)
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    Glitch failed into an acquihire by Fastly.
buildbot 4y ago
Is this not a massively fraudulent? "We've decided to bill your free account for past usage because we now own the company" does not compute - they did not pay for or maintain those free accounts, but are seeking backdated rent for them.
rad_gruchalski 4y ago
> Does Joel Spolsky know? I don’t think he’d be impressed. It doesn’t matter if he would be impressed. He sold the business, cash in hand, emotions have no place here. I’m thinking about something else: if this company was the best buyer, what was the state of that business?
- alex_sf 4y ago
  The business was fine. The new CEO was trash.
  - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    Okay, what was the state of the business under the new ceo at the time when the business was sold to the current owner?
    - alex_sf 4y ago
      Languishing, since all resources were being pushed into Glitch. Which then failed.
      - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
        Thanks, that’s insightful.
        anildash 4y ago
        It’s also inaccurate, but judging by the rest of his comments here, I’m not sure accuracy is the goal.
        alex_sf 4y ago
        It is not inaccurate in the slightest. I'd love to hear exactly what you think is incorrect about it, but I'm well aware you avoid specificity as much as possible.
Sebb767 4y ago
I guess this is one of the risks if you sell your company or software. I'm pretty sure Joel doesn't like this, but this will not reflect well on him - and yes, I know he sold the company some time ago, but how many people are going to check that instead of simply making a mental note about him being shady?
slg 4y ago
I also got this email and it has to have been at least a decade since I last used FogBugz. Any payment method I had on my account would have long since expired so I wasn't worried about actually being billed. Yet I still tried to find a place to login, maybe get a little nostalgia from whatever issues I last logged in the system, and likely begin the process of getting my account officially deleted. However there doesn't appear to actually be any way to login to FogBugz. I don't understand what this company is trying to do. Why send out "you owe us money" emails without having a website that at least functions enough for people to pay you? What is their goal here? Even if this is a scam, it doesn't seem to be a functioning one.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

156 points by hermitcrab 4y ago

Fogbugz going pay-only with little notice was discussed previously at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32874311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32874311. A preposterous business practice, and incredibly frustrating. I don't know what can be done about companies acting poorly in this way, though.

perlgeek 4y ago
Class-action lawsuit for attempted fraud? (charging money for a free account looks like fraud to me, but IANAL, much less in the US...)
- buildbot 4y ago
  Yeah came here after reading the article to say, this seems like vanilla fraud.
hermitcrab 4y ago
I only just got the first email. I guess they are sending them in batches.
- juice_bus 4y ago
  I got an email stating I would be charged but I don't even remember what FogBugz is, I couldn't log into any account and no password reset came my way. I really don't want to deal with these charges out of no where.

smackeyacky 4y ago

Back in the 1990s, this was Computer Associates entire business model: buy software that was past it's peak but still had active, paying users; Slap a CA logo on it; start charging through the nose. It's like a protection racket. You need that software, possibly have no good alternatives, and CA knew that. They rarely seemed to put much effort into maintaining anything either. I am surprised it's not a more popular business model now.

ISL 4y ago
I think the term of art is "unlocking value".
- hinkley 4y ago
  We've just found a new dress to stuff Corporate Raiding into. In the 1980's, when you weren't worrying about the someone accidentally starting WWIII, Japan completely unraveling the American Industrial Complex, Dungeons and Dragons turning your kids into satanists, marijuana turning your kids into crackheads (1980's meth epidemic) or treating your child's ADHD not being a sign of responsibility but declaring moral bankruptcy on your terrible parenting skills, you had to worry about your company's hard assets being worth more than your market cap, and a bunch of people staging a hostile takeover so they could sell your company for scrap to release that 'value' that is really your rainy day fund. See also "Other People's Money" starring Danny DeVito as a corporate raider/Pinocchio character.
  - hermitcrab 4y ago
    Maybe the money went out of being a patent troll, so they are trying a new model? Buy a once loved, but now defunct, product and try it on with everyone on their massive mailing list. Maybe enough suckers will pay to make it worthwhile?
dman 4y ago
That name brings back memories! Not of the good kind.
morelisp 4y ago
I think it's still very popular, but the companies involved do a better job hiding themselves. Idera and Scaleworks aren't super well-known names, sometimes even if you're stuck on one of their subsidiary products.
ouEight12 4y ago
There's currently some concern in IT circles that Broadcom is intending something similar to "The CA Business Model" with their vmware acquisition. :(

patio11 4y ago

(I guess this is mostly meditating on what the original builders of software feel when their products, which they poured love and care into, end up in the afterlife of software.) I've sometimes worried about the fate of my businesses after selling them, in the event they pass through many hands, but that's part of the risk of selling. I got an email from a customer of ~10 years ago complaining that they couldn't reach the current CS team (site was down) and asking if I had a direct contact. It, luckily, came back up; it was not obvious to me that it would. On the one hand, frustrating as a founder, but on the other hand, no rational person expects someone to grind out support emails for an employer they haven't worked at in 10 years, right? I get that e.g. a teacher is inconvenienced, but the Unified School District of Middle America is inconvenienced that there are homework assignments not graded right now. and they don't get to call people 10 years into retirement and say "Well you worked here once upon a time and these assignments aren't going to grade themselves."

hermitcrab 4y ago
Hi Patrick, Just to be clear, I'm absolutely not blaming Joel or previous FogBugz employees for this state of affairs. But I know I would be deeply hurt if one of my products was bought by someone who tried these sort of dark practices on my one-time customers. Ps/ Well done on the recent 'Planet Money' podcast appearance.
- richardw 4y ago
  Some colour: Joel made both Andy (hermitcrab) and Patrick (patio11) mods on the old Business of Software forum back in the day. This is a great echo.
  - patio11 4y ago
    The Internet is a very tiny place at times.
- patio11 4y ago
  Yep, not worried at all, just talking through somewhat complex feelings here. (Andy and I know each other well, folks, if this isn’t obvious from context. Relevantly, we met on Fog Creek’s forums back in 2006 or so.)

abeyer 4y ago

They're not only sending these to active (even if free) users: They've sent payment demands to users who haven't used it but still had long idle free or expired accounts... but they _also_ deleted accounts that had been idle and have no error handling for that, so all the links in the email just give you 500 errors. Classy.

drcongo 4y ago
Yep, that's what happened with me.

JeremyBanks 4y ago

dpcan 4y ago

I got the same email and I sent them the same email. Not paying for anything, it was a free tool for a while, I didn’t use it, but loved the company. It is sad to see it crash and burn like this.

Ensorceled 4y ago

I got one of these notices. The first notice was Friday the 16th saying that my free account was being upgraded. Tried to login into my account and got a 500 error. Then Sunday the 18th, I got a notice that my account was being charged for a 5 user license. I had stopped using Fogbugz in 2015 when they sunset or went pay only for Kiln (I forget which happened); so I was a bit surprised. I couldn't login to my account. But I created a support ticket (had to jump through a few hoops since I had a Fogbugz support account already that wouldn't work). Support answered the ticket and assured me that my account was deleted and I will not be charged. I've set a reminder to check my business credit card over the next little while... not that I'm suspicious or anything.

lupire 4y ago

The article mentions moving on to Stack overflow, but Spolsky sold that last year also.

abeyer 4y ago
I think glitch is the current incarnation of what has the most claim to having once been Fog Creek. (though afaik Spolsky has minimal if any involvement with it anymore.)
- alex_sf 4y ago
  Glitch failed into an acquihire by Fastly.

buildbot 4y ago

Is this not a massively fraudulent? "We've decided to bill your free account for past usage because we now own the company" does not compute - they did not pay for or maintain those free accounts, but are seeking backdated rent for them.

rad_gruchalski 4y ago

> Does Joel Spolsky know? I don’t think he’d be impressed. It doesn’t matter if he would be impressed. He sold the business, cash in hand, emotions have no place here. I’m thinking about something else: if this company was the best buyer, what was the state of that business?

alex_sf 4y ago
The business was fine. The new CEO was trash.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  Okay, what was the state of the business under the new ceo at the time when the business was sold to the current owner?
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    Languishing, since all resources were being pushed into Glitch. Which then failed.
    - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
      Thanks, that’s insightful.
      - anildash 4y ago
        It’s also inaccurate, but judging by the rest of his comments here, I’m not sure accuracy is the goal.
        alex_sf 4y ago
        It is not inaccurate in the slightest. I'd love to hear exactly what you think is incorrect about it, but I'm well aware you avoid specificity as much as possible.

Sebb767 4y ago

I guess this is one of the risks if you sell your company or software. I'm pretty sure Joel doesn't like this, but this will not reflect well on him - and yes, I know he sold the company some time ago, but how many people are going to check that instead of simply making a mental note about him being shady?

slg 4y ago

I also got this email and it has to have been at least a decade since I last used FogBugz. Any payment method I had on my account would have long since expired so I wasn't worried about actually being billed. Yet I still tried to find a place to login, maybe get a little nostalgia from whatever issues I last logged in the system, and likely begin the process of getting my account officially deleted. However there doesn't appear to actually be any way to login to FogBugz. I don't understand what this company is trying to do. Why send out "you owe us money" emails without having a website that at least functions enough for people to pay you? What is their goal here? Even if this is a scam, it doesn't seem to be a functioning one.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]