6 ms·

I can feel in this post the years of dealing with people nicely, only to have them treat you as if you are the bad guy. I've had people send nasty emails after

I can feel in this post the years of dealing with people nicely, only to have them treat you as if you are the bad guy. I've had people send nasty emails after I moved or got rid of an image that they were hotlinking. People have called me all sorts of ugly names because a free app that I wrote didn't have a feature they need. People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released. All this because I can't always manage to reply to people needing support for my free-time projects. I'm sure a lot of you here have known the same type of treatment.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released. WHAT!?
- jakejake 12y ago
  They were in another country where it presumably was business hours. I had one guy literally stalk me until he found a DNS registration with my phone number (will never make that mistake again)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - chx 12y ago
    I do not have a phone any more, all phone calls go to voicemail and I will call you back if I want and when I want (over Voice-over-IP for free). Texts go through the two way email gateway at Anveo.
    - cpb 12y ago
      Go on...
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      I just wanted to say thanks for this idea. I'm porting my old cell number to Twilio, sending all calls through Google Voice to get voicemail emails with transcription (Twilio charges extra for transcription), and getting a new number with no voice service through T-Mobile.
- patmcguire 12y ago
  See https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d4018042c70a4db733dd38f96896cd825f/src/os.h#L52 https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d4018042c70a4db...
  - rcr 12y ago
    Wow.
  - aptwebapps 12y ago
    Although that particular case is as much about misattribution and misunderstanding as entitlement.
  - mikeryan 12y ago
    Just spent 5 minutes wandering through the sqlite source remembering how pretty it is.
- robflynn 12y ago
  You would be surprised. I was yelled at on the regular by folks using gaim because I didn't want to add whatever random feature they were asking for. I also had some dude, some how, figure out my cell phone number. He started calling me at 3am. He would always say that he "wanted to talk to me about his ideas." I had to change my number to get away from that one.
  - iaw 12y ago
    I've recent learned from a PM friend of mine that a good response to features you have no intention of implementing (better than a flat no) is: I'll take that into consideration and see where I can fit it into our development timeline. The end is the same result (no feature) but with a bit more comfort for both parties.
    - tiptup 12y ago
      This reminded me of the oft-repeated quote from Alicia Florrick in last week's episode of The Good Wife. "All options are open to me, and I plan to decide in the next 48 hours."
      - iaw 12y ago
        LOL, I watched that episode. It is the exact same principal but seemingly easier to pull off because it is independent of any actual decision.
    - hayksaakian 12y ago
      A nicer way to do that is quote a fee 50x more than you'd reasonably charge.
      - have_humility 12y ago
        And the optimal way to do it? Just quote the actual figure that it would cost them for you to agree to it.
- joeblau 12y ago
  I've seen this happen on multiple projects. A few years ago on HN, I think, someone posted some research showing that getting rid of the free tier members from a service improves the service since customer service can focus on customers who are bringing value.
  - breischl 12y ago
    Absolutely true in my experience. We had a service with free and paid tiers. The paid customers were uniformly respectful and even helpful. The free users were usually demanding, sometimes abusive, and would spend hours trying to convince you that they can't survive without your service but they also shouldn't have to pay for it.
    - sbov 12y ago
      We don't have a free tier, and we get a funny support request more often than I would have thought: people who don't want to cancel their account, but don't want to pay anymore. I wonder how often this actually works.
      - wpietri 12y ago
        I would be terribly tempted to counteroffer with a special plan where we disable their account but keep billing them at twice the rate.
      - bitJericho 12y ago
        I called to cancel my cell phone service and the carrier offered me half off. I was cancelling because I found out a competitor was half the price. (This is in the US where cell phone bills are unreasonable even at half price) It was so infuriating to learn that I was overpaying for months and months. I still cancelled.
        breischl 12y ago
        That usually works with internet and probably cable TV as well. Really any of the "utilities" that aren't actually regulated by a PUC.
Crito 12y ago
> "People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released." I've found a way to mitigate this is to never release pre-built binaries. Just distribute a makefile and source. The kind of people who are not deterred by that will be less likely to expect that level of support from the developers. This certainly limits your audience, but if the program is just something you made as a hobby and are releasing because "why not?", then I'd rather have a small low maintenance audience.
- bdcravens 12y ago
  Plus you'll in theory be more secure, depending on the type of dependency management in place. I think the same should be true even of interpreted language projects. Just ship it with a bower.json, etc. (For those who worry that future versions might break their project, that's an issue with your project, and you'd have the aforementioned support nightmare.)
- ecnahc515 12y ago
  In his case, it was with sqlite, which he would have encountered this problem in any case.
markdown 12y ago
There's a guy on here bitter about a private, hidden, unpublished api being taken offline. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9312836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9312836
- AYBABTME 12y ago
  There's no point in highlighting it, you already told that person. =/
gumby 12y ago
Brian Fox used to reply to whiners, "Please return bash for a full refund."

toomuchtodo 12y ago

> People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released. WHAT!?

jakejake 12y ago
They were in another country where it presumably was business hours. I had one guy literally stalk me until he found a DNS registration with my phone number (will never make that mistake again)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- chx 12y ago
  I do not have a phone any more, all phone calls go to voicemail and I will call you back if I want and when I want (over Voice-over-IP for free). Texts go through the two way email gateway at Anveo.
  - cpb 12y ago
    Go on...
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    I just wanted to say thanks for this idea. I'm porting my old cell number to Twilio, sending all calls through Google Voice to get voicemail emails with transcription (Twilio charges extra for transcription), and getting a new number with no voice service through T-Mobile.
patmcguire 12y ago
See https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d4018042c70a4db733dd38f96896cd825f/src/os.h#L52 https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d4018042c70a4db...
- rcr 12y ago
  Wow.
- aptwebapps 12y ago
  Although that particular case is as much about misattribution and misunderstanding as entitlement.
- mikeryan 12y ago
  Just spent 5 minutes wandering through the sqlite source remembering how pretty it is.
robflynn 12y ago
You would be surprised. I was yelled at on the regular by folks using gaim because I didn't want to add whatever random feature they were asking for. I also had some dude, some how, figure out my cell phone number. He started calling me at 3am. He would always say that he "wanted to talk to me about his ideas." I had to change my number to get away from that one.
- iaw 12y ago
  I've recent learned from a PM friend of mine that a good response to features you have no intention of implementing (better than a flat no) is: I'll take that into consideration and see where I can fit it into our development timeline. The end is the same result (no feature) but with a bit more comfort for both parties.
  - tiptup 12y ago
    This reminded me of the oft-repeated quote from Alicia Florrick in last week's episode of The Good Wife. "All options are open to me, and I plan to decide in the next 48 hours."
    - iaw 12y ago
      LOL, I watched that episode. It is the exact same principal but seemingly easier to pull off because it is independent of any actual decision.
  - hayksaakian 12y ago
    A nicer way to do that is quote a fee 50x more than you'd reasonably charge.
    - have_humility 12y ago
      And the optimal way to do it? Just quote the actual figure that it would cost them for you to agree to it.
joeblau 12y ago
I've seen this happen on multiple projects. A few years ago on HN, I think, someone posted some research showing that getting rid of the free tier members from a service improves the service since customer service can focus on customers who are bringing value.
- breischl 12y ago
  Absolutely true in my experience. We had a service with free and paid tiers. The paid customers were uniformly respectful and even helpful. The free users were usually demanding, sometimes abusive, and would spend hours trying to convince you that they can't survive without your service but they also shouldn't have to pay for it.
  - sbov 12y ago
    We don't have a free tier, and we get a funny support request more often than I would have thought: people who don't want to cancel their account, but don't want to pay anymore. I wonder how often this actually works.
    - wpietri 12y ago
      I would be terribly tempted to counteroffer with a special plan where we disable their account but keep billing them at twice the rate.
    - bitJericho 12y ago
      I called to cancel my cell phone service and the carrier offered me half off. I was cancelling because I found out a competitor was half the price. (This is in the US where cell phone bills are unreasonable even at half price) It was so infuriating to learn that I was overpaying for months and months. I still cancelled.
      - breischl 12y ago
        That usually works with internet and probably cable TV as well. Really any of the "utilities" that aren't actually regulated by a PUC.

Crito 12y ago

> "People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released." I've found a way to mitigate this is to never release pre-built binaries. Just distribute a makefile and source. The kind of people who are not deterred by that will be less likely to expect that level of support from the developers. This certainly limits your audience, but if the program is just something you made as a hobby and are releasing because "why not?", then I'd rather have a small low maintenance audience.

bdcravens 12y ago
Plus you'll in theory be more secure, depending on the type of dependency management in place. I think the same should be true even of interpreted language projects. Just ship it with a bower.json, etc. (For those who worry that future versions might break their project, that's an issue with your project, and you'd have the aforementioned support nightmare.)
ecnahc515 12y ago
In his case, it was with sqlite, which he would have encountered this problem in any case.

markdown 12y ago

There's a guy on here bitter about a private, hidden, unpublished api being taken offline. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9312836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9312836

AYBABTME 12y ago
There's no point in highlighting it, you already told that person. =/

gumby 12y ago

Brian Fox used to reply to whiners, "Please return bash for a full refund."