5 ms·
What was the problem preventing residents of Canada from using tarsnap?
by dfc 14y ago
What was the problem preventing residents of Canada from using tarsnap?
- cperciva 14y agoSales tax paperwork -- Tarsnap is based on Canada, so it has to charge sales taxes to Canadians. Oddly enough, the Canada Revenue Agency is a bit unclear on how exactly to handle picodollars.
- dfc 14y agoShould I wait for your blog post before I ask questions about how you handled everything?
- cperciva 14y agoI'll be providing details in my blog post, but the short answer is: I'm paying the taxes (aka. they're included in the advertised price), which allows me to compute them retroactively; and the government has absolutely no objection to people paying more taxes than they owe, which means that I can get away with calculating taxes in a way which technically wrong but actually both simpler and more in keeping with the spirit of the law.
- tptacek 14y agoOddly enough, the Canada Revenue Agency is a bit unclear on how exactly to handle picodollars. So are many of your prospective customers! STOP DOING THAT.
- cperciva 14y agoUsing picodollars attracts exactly the customers I want. You have absolutely no idea how many people have told me that they started using Tarsnap because of the picodollars.
- solutionyogi 14y agoI think I vouch for Thomas when I say that you have no idea how many more customers you can get and more importantly how much more money you will be able to make if you drop your picodollars pricing. I work for various hedge funds in NYC and none of my clients will ever take Tarsnap seriously based on your pricing. They equate pricing with quality.
- dchest 14y agoNot sure what the problem is. Would they use AWS? On EC2 pricing page you see prices like "$0.080 per Hour". On Tarsnap home page you see "$0.30/GB". What's the "quality price" for backup service?
- ibotty 14y agothat's their fault.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kelnos 14y agoClearly those people are the exact kinds of customers Colin is trying to avoid...
- cperciva 14y agoI think you're conflating two different issues here -- advertising prices in picodollars, and what the price per GB ends up being. As far as picodollars go, I figured that hedge funds would understand those perfectly -- after all, they're in the business of shaving microseconds off their order times so that they can extract a few extra microdollars per share, right?
- solutionyogi 14y agoColin, I have a tremendous respect for you and I love your product. But you have to understand that hedge funds do not care about 'saving money' as much as they care about 'making money'. So yes, they will go to crazy lengths to shave microseconds off their order times but they will not try to save a penny while they are conducting their business. From their perspective, when they see a product priced in picodollars their immediate reaction is that this is not a product for them. They want to use best in class product and they have learned over the years that the best in class product costs money, lots of it. So even though Tarsnap is best in class, they will ignore it because it is priced too low. For their back up service, they want to pay thousands of dollars and get a guarantee from the vendor that they will be their if shit hits the fan.