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One of the reasons I recently shut down a free tool was due to the frankly horrific comments I received from users if it didn't work just exactly as they expect

by doktrin 14y ago

One of the reasons I recently shut down a free tool was due to the frankly horrific comments I received from users if it didn't work just exactly as they expected. Whilst it did worked, and I probably could have explained things a bit more clearly, I don't understand the mentality of users sending messages like "WHY THE [nsfw filter] ISN'T THIS WORKING YOU [nsfw filter]? I HOPE YOU DIE." They put me off checking emails for that account, and Twitter via TweetDeck as a whole. This is horrifying, and only further dissuades me from ever pursuing a venture built around the freemium model. Frankly, I'm not a fan of it as a concept to begin with. The fact that it contributes to the mis-guided sense of entitlement of (in the words of Louis CK) non-contributing zeros only adds insult to injury.

mootothemax 14y ago
This is horrifying, and only further dissuades me from ever pursuing a venture built around the freemium model. Heh, to be fair it's not all doom and gloom, I can't see how so many people would offer it if it was. Even with the paid tools, you will still receive the occasional bewildering email, such as this gem which arrived over the weekend: Dang!! I love this app sooooo much. I thought it was free. Until i looked over and saw it was only a trial. I'm no longer using this site until it becomes free Sigh.
zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
I don't think this has anything to do with it being free. I run an ecommerce site and everyone pays.. and have always paid for everything for the past 10 years. Most people are polite and nice, and realize they are dealing with another human being. But a small percentage will say things like that. My "favorite" email was 2 paragraphs, telling me what a terrible human being I was ("burn in hell", etc) because USPS required a signature for his package, and the UPS store refused to sign for it (even though that's their job). Never asked for the signature to be waived on his $200 package... which I would have happily done. If you take a group of thousands of people, some of those people are just going to be terrible to deal with. I think people confuse this with it being free because the free version of their product is used by so many more people. But I can guarantee that if their paid version had as many users, they would be receiving those same emails.

by doktrin 14y ago

mootothemax 14y ago

This is horrifying, and only further dissuades me from ever pursuing a venture built around the freemium model. Heh, to be fair it's not all doom and gloom, I can't see how so many people would offer it if it was. Even with the paid tools, you will still receive the occasional bewildering email, such as this gem which arrived over the weekend: Dang!! I love this app sooooo much. I thought it was free. Until i looked over and saw it was only a trial. I'm no longer using this site until it becomes free Sigh.

zcvosdfdgj 14y ago

I don't think this has anything to do with it being free. I run an ecommerce site and everyone pays.. and have always paid for everything for the past 10 years. Most people are polite and nice, and realize they are dealing with another human being. But a small percentage will say things like that. My "favorite" email was 2 paragraphs, telling me what a terrible human being I was ("burn in hell", etc) because USPS required a signature for his package, and the UPS store refused to sign for it (even though that's their job). Never asked for the signature to be waived on his $200 package... which I would have happily done. If you take a group of thousands of people, some of those people are just going to be terrible to deal with. I think people confuse this with it being free because the free version of their product is used by so many more people. But I can guarantee that if their paid version had as many users, they would be receiving those same emails.