4 ms·

There is a depressing theme on this thread that businesses == spammers. I am sure that a long history of poor email use by many companies helped create this imp

There is a depressing theme on this thread that businesses == spammers. I am sure that a long history of poor email use by many companies helped create this impression, but this way too broad of a generalization. Our startup has a "free report" where we analyze a single page and dependent resources for ~420 front-end performance issues. We believe that this has value. For that free report, we ask for a valid email address, so we can send you 1 email, from an actual person, to ask what you thought of the findings and to offer to answer any questions. That's it. You get something, we get something. Now, I understand that 1st time users can't/don't know if our free report value, so they don't want to give us something you consider valuable in return. But using a temporary email to get peek at value from me is a dick move. 1000 people rush to tell me: "But if you service has value then people will come back and [blah blah blah]". Well, you have a gut feel and I have 4 years of data. And we have had 0 temp email providers ever want to talk with us. Clearly we provide value, because we have a number of large customers in the retail and media spaces. What I've learned is the type of person who uses a temp email provider doesn't see the value that our customers do. They don't fit our customer model, so we don't spend time or energy on them, and importantly money/resources on them. Instead we filter the major temp email providers and display a message explaining our email policy, and ask them to use a real email address. People can get around it, but it raises the bar and explains our position, which is really the only thing I can do. Jerk companies have created an environment that is tarnishes everyone, and that is depressing as hell.

philh 12y ago
From your perspective, is there a difference between "user gives you a temporary email address" and "user gives you their real email address and ignores the email you send"?
- billyhoffman 12y ago
  Yes, to me they are different. Temp email users could see my email, and ignore it. A real email user could see the email and ignore it. While the outcome is the same, for me it's a matter of intent. A disposable email address feel like "I don't trust you, go away, you are not allowed to talk to me". Great. I understand, and being selective with your trust is good. But I'm not some random person walking up to you on the street and saying "give me your email address". You came to me, and you are asking me to give you something (in this case, an analysis of your website's front-end performance issues). In return, I at least want the opportunity for my email to rot in a place that might actually get your attention :-)
StavrosK 12y ago
I use 33mail.com for everything (it tells me who sold my address and can also block them from ever emailing me again). The amount of email that doesn't have unsubscribe links is really, really low, and so is the amount of unsolicited email I get after handing out my address. So low that I don't really have to use 33mail, I guess, but there has been one company that sold my address, I think, in the last five years, so it's worth it. The vast majority of spam is bots who just randomly send mail at domains, or bots who scraped my email address from my website. That's a much bigger source of spam for me, so don't fret too much about your service. That said, people whose unsubscribe links aren't one click should get multiple papercuts, especially if their email settings are managed behind the account password I've long forgotten. I send those to spam with glee.

philh 12y ago

From your perspective, is there a difference between "user gives you a temporary email address" and "user gives you their real email address and ignores the email you send"?

billyhoffman 12y ago
Yes, to me they are different. Temp email users could see my email, and ignore it. A real email user could see the email and ignore it. While the outcome is the same, for me it's a matter of intent. A disposable email address feel like "I don't trust you, go away, you are not allowed to talk to me". Great. I understand, and being selective with your trust is good. But I'm not some random person walking up to you on the street and saying "give me your email address". You came to me, and you are asking me to give you something (in this case, an analysis of your website's front-end performance issues). In return, I at least want the opportunity for my email to rot in a place that might actually get your attention :-)

StavrosK 12y ago

I use 33mail.com for everything (it tells me who sold my address and can also block them from ever emailing me again). The amount of email that doesn't have unsubscribe links is really, really low, and so is the amount of unsolicited email I get after handing out my address. So low that I don't really have to use 33mail, I guess, but there has been one company that sold my address, I think, in the last five years, so it's worth it. The vast majority of spam is bots who just randomly send mail at domains, or bots who scraped my email address from my website. That's a much bigger source of spam for me, so don't fret too much about your service. That said, people whose unsubscribe links aren't one click should get multiple papercuts, especially if their email settings are managed behind the account password I've long forgotten. I send those to spam with glee.