Like, I don't really blame them for not sticking with a clearly nonviable free tier, but taking the easy way out at the expense of fucking over your (free, sure) users is still sorta rude.
idk if people "should" know better, it's a pretty dreadful world where you're to completely understand the business model behind every service you rely on to some extent, or else it's really your own fault when they pull the rug from under you with like five minutes of very non-specific notice.
Society just couldn't operate if everybody actually read the entirety of the terms of all the services they use. We'd get nothing done.
For example, if I buy a physical-world object then it's well-understood that the vendor can't break into my house and take it back or, in most circumstances, demand its return. Many physical-world objects additionally come with a warranty assuring that it will continue to work for some length of time.
Online, the digital "object" that I upload to a free service has no such ownership analogue - the service provider can generally cease to offer the service at will. This not only means there's zero warranty, but effectively that service providers can "break into my house" to "take back" the object.
I don't think there's much awareness in the general public that GMail, to pick on a well-used example, could shut down tomorrow and almost every user would irretrievably lose the last N years of their email.
Do you expect the grocery store to give ample notice? Should they change their mind when people complain?
Admittedly the analogy isn't perfect because the samples aren't a major portion of the grocery store's cost/business, but it's still decent.
I'm baffled that people seem to feel this is an unreasonable expectation for anyone trying to make money from such a service, especially as a free user. It's not a public utility.
>Society just couldn't operate if everybody actually read the entirety of the terms of all the services they use. We'd get nothing done.
This isn't society, though, this is business. This is why companies hire lawyers and pay for contracts with their suppliers, etc.
Yes, the way Photobucket went about this is crass, clueless and rude, but users who just expected the service to "work" indefinitely are also at fault for doing so.
Proper way to do this would be to: - Notify your customers about the change in an easy to read email and/or message when you log in. - Only apply the change to new uploads at first, then it's easily discoverable and handled by users. Inform them that you plan to do this for all hosted images. - Apply the change to older uploads a few months later.
Hiding and rushing it just makes people angry. They won't pay if they feel you tricked them.
How can a firm rely on a free service without a contract guaranteeing anything?
There's a serious distinction, and the complaints explicitly are from business users claiming that they shouldn't be considered even potential customers.
From the business perspective, it doesn't make sense to subsidize your free users' business needs. The article mention a backslash, but I'm not sure how much should they care about complaints from customers they have chosen to fire.
From the users' point of view, this is their 6-months reminder that a) you should read the terms of what you are agreeing to, and b) if you are not paying for a service, you get what you pay for. A harsh lesson for sure, but a lesson more people should probably learn.