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The reason this is more of a scam is that many people are glad to initially pay more in return for a lifetime price lock. Many of us stuck it out with T-Mobile

by blagie 2y ago

The reason this is more of a scam is that many people are glad to initially pay more in return for a lifetime price lock. Many of us stuck it out with T-Mobile plans despite better options at the time because we're okay paying more now in return for a guarantee of not paying more later. If T-Mobile is not honoring this once it no longer benefits them, a minimum penalty should be the price difference between T-Mobile and the cheapest similar option over the lifetime of the plan. If I paid $50/month, and there was a $30/month option through Mint, MetroPCS, etc. for four years with the same data / talk limit, I should get back a minimum of 48 months * $20 ≈ $1000 (increased by a bit, assuming money was held in an index fund in the meantime). Part of the reason this matters is many companies use similar lifetime tactics to get started. Nebula has $300 lifetime plans, which provided much of the early capital they needed. If this doesn't work anymore, it pisses in the pool for everyone wanting to do something similar. It's perfectly fine to have early customers fund you with (eventually money-losing) lifetime plans, to buy marketshare this way, etc. There are a lot of business models which go away if this can't be relied on.

dotancohen 2y ago
I's say that they should refund to you the entirety of your expected payments over the course of your expected lifetime. That would be their recourse towards you if you were to breach a contract with them, no? If you sign a $50/month contract for 36 months, and back out after 10 months, will they not come after you for $50 * 26 = $1300?
- beerandt 2y ago
  Yea it should cost more to break the contract than to honor it.
imglorp 2y ago
This, in a marketplace where words like "purchase" and "unlimited"[1] don't mean what you think they do. "Lifetime" surely can't mean that either. The FTC has been growing some teeth again, and needs to stay vigilant. 1. https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/01/are-you-former-att-unlimited-data-plan-customer-read https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/01/are-you-for...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- lizard 2y ago
  Is this even new for "lifetime"? A "lifetime warranty" often refers to the "lifetime" of the product, not your lifetime or the expected lifetime of any person. In that sense, T-Mobile has played this pretty straight. Customers got a price lock for the lifetime of the offer. Just on a quick read, it looks like a "lifetime warranty" must actually define a length of time though. Which for a product you can, at least claim to, stress test or base on the weakest component.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Fastmail is a pretty well-regarded email service here. When they started out, there was a $50 "lifetime" account offer, which I took. They continued to honor this, even after they stopped offering it to new customers. As far as I know they still do, but at some point, I wanted more storage or some other feature, but I'd have to give up that "lifetime" plan to make any changes, so now I'm on a yearly paid plan. I grumbled a bit but they technically kept their word.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  I think this is acceptable in all fairness.
  - blagie 2y ago
    It is and it isn't. I'll give another example of how it might not be: Google is intentionally screwing around with customers who signed up for an email account with their own domain. This gradually evolved into GSuite/free, Google Workspace, and Google has, at times threatened to wipe out accounts unless people paid, broken services, quite often very intentionally, etc. Simply harassing people into paying should not be legal. There's a threshold somewhere, but OP should be able to e.g. pay extra on top of the free plan for more storage without giving up the baseline free plan. It's also bad business. Google lost millions of dollars of business that way, on me, personally. I've had enough bad experiences with Google that I always advise people against doing business with Google. If Google had killed GSuite/free and wiped out my data, it'd be very visible (blog posts and the like), but where we are, it's discreet. If things like my GSuite account continued working, I'd be promoting Google like I used to when it was a quirky don't-be-evil company. Right now, the things which bug me most: They need to fix Google Voice and enable paying for Google One on individual accounts. Oh, and on the topic of Google Voice, my landline is about to break as Google just broke Obihai support.... There are a lot of economic texts which talk about how being able to have social capital, defined as for example being able to rely on promises, helps grow economies. Landes is a good example.

by blagie 2y ago

dotancohen 2y ago

I's say that they should refund to you the entirety of your expected payments over the course of your expected lifetime. That would be their recourse towards you if you were to breach a contract with them, no? If you sign a $50/month contract for 36 months, and back out after 10 months, will they not come after you for $50 * 26 = $1300?

beerandt 2y ago
Yea it should cost more to break the contract than to honor it.

imglorp 2y ago

This, in a marketplace where words like "purchase" and "unlimited"[1] don't mean what you think they do. "Lifetime" surely can't mean that either. The FTC has been growing some teeth again, and needs to stay vigilant. 1. https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/01/are-you-former-att-unlimited-data-plan-customer-read https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/01/are-you-for...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lizard 2y ago
Is this even new for "lifetime"? A "lifetime warranty" often refers to the "lifetime" of the product, not your lifetime or the expected lifetime of any person. In that sense, T-Mobile has played this pretty straight. Customers got a price lock for the lifetime of the offer. Just on a quick read, it looks like a "lifetime warranty" must actually define a length of time though. Which for a product you can, at least claim to, stress test or base on the weakest component.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Fastmail is a pretty well-regarded email service here. When they started out, there was a $50 "lifetime" account offer, which I took. They continued to honor this, even after they stopped offering it to new customers. As far as I know they still do, but at some point, I wanted more storage or some other feature, but I'd have to give up that "lifetime" plan to make any changes, so now I'm on a yearly paid plan. I grumbled a bit but they technically kept their word.

giancarlostoro 2y ago
I think this is acceptable in all fairness.
- blagie 2y ago
  It is and it isn't. I'll give another example of how it might not be: Google is intentionally screwing around with customers who signed up for an email account with their own domain. This gradually evolved into GSuite/free, Google Workspace, and Google has, at times threatened to wipe out accounts unless people paid, broken services, quite often very intentionally, etc. Simply harassing people into paying should not be legal. There's a threshold somewhere, but OP should be able to e.g. pay extra on top of the free plan for more storage without giving up the baseline free plan. It's also bad business. Google lost millions of dollars of business that way, on me, personally. I've had enough bad experiences with Google that I always advise people against doing business with Google. If Google had killed GSuite/free and wiped out my data, it'd be very visible (blog posts and the like), but where we are, it's discreet. If things like my GSuite account continued working, I'd be promoting Google like I used to when it was a quirky don't-be-evil company. Right now, the things which bug me most: They need to fix Google Voice and enable paying for Google One on individual accounts. Oh, and on the topic of Google Voice, my landline is about to break as Google just broke Obihai support.... There are a lot of economic texts which talk about how being able to have social capital, defined as for example being able to rely on promises, helps grow economies. Landes is a good example.