Where did I say I reply like this to everyone? Why would you expect to be rude to a support person and still get support?

In my view, you extend people basic courtesy, whether you're paying them or not, and paying doesn't give you the right to act entitled. Price doesn't enter into it, I reply the same way to every rude customer, except one-off payments don't have "I won't give you any more money" to fall back on to excuse their bad behaviour.

I'm with Stavros on this. Fundamental attribution error is real, and while it's a good reason not to judge a person for a one-time outburst, such rude behavior is still unacceptable in a civilized society. People don't stop testing behavioral boundaries once they become adults, so someone who's successful at shouting customer service into compliance is likely to continue doing so. Standing up to rude behavior is doing a service for everyone.

This is entirely orthogonal to support - customer protection laws define what a customer is entitled to. Often, the call to customer support is an attempt to expedite the process beyond what the laws dictate. Many companies will gladly comply, as even a happy ex-customer is a win. But if someone's being rude, it's only fair to tell them to send a filled-in form by letter and expect a reply in 14 business days.

> If a developer responds to me in that way for an app that I depend on, he/she would make an enemy for life.

What happened to "we don't deal with terrorists"?

The answer of the developer seems reasonable to me if the point was "do this or I'll go to competitors", well, it's you right, do it then.

And if the customer was really that bad as it seems, I would have refunded them and let them go for good.

No amount of money can buy my time if I don't want to spend it doing something I don't want to do.

Customer protection laws are there to protect customers against misbeahavings, if I buy a Sony Television and they refuse to fix a broken one, I can appeal to customer's protection, if they refuse to add WIFI to a model that was born without it, it's in their rights.

That’s one very liberal interpretation for “terrorist”.

If your skin is too thin to deal with angry customers you should not be facing them. There’re plenty of back office jobs out there. If you’re an enterpreneur, you probably should hire someone if you’re too easily offended.

Most of those angry customers are people who are suffering some kind of pain inflicted by your product. Some people are arsholes, others don’t handle stress well. Some have something else going on with their lives and this was a tipping point. Others are simply rude. But terrorist? No, they’re not terrorists.

> That’s one very liberal interpretation for “terrorist”.

Isn't terrorism about "making enemies"?

That's what you wrote.

> If your skin is too thin to deal with angry customers you should not be facing them

Isn't it exactly what the OP did?

> If you’re an enterpreneur, you probably should hire someone if you’re too easily offended.

I'm almost never offended.

But I'm not a psychologist, I don't have to deal with people hanger management problems and honestly I\m not even trained to.

> Most of those angry customers are people who are suffering some kind of pain inflicted by your product

That nobody ever forced to buy.

Small companies are usually made by a handful of people, working on a few products, all day.

Complaining that their support is not the best around is futile, they get the blame simply because they offer some form of support, because in the end they care about their customers and they obviously care more about 99.9% who appreciate their work than those few who do not.

The real offenders - Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. etc. - don't even offer a customer support while making billions out of their users.

I would be very surprised to see any T&C for a consumer grade app or service explicitly stating that they serve a specific purpose or solve a specific issue. Usually the T&C state that the service is "as is". You are entitled to be pissed-off, as much as the developer is entitled to just say " no", unless you have a contract stating otherwise.

I generally strive to help people resolve their problems, and 99% of people are polite and get great support, even if they can't articulate their problem initially. I just can't stand people who think it's okay to walk all over others just because they're in a paying relationship with them.

People condemn individuals who are rude to their servers, but it seems to me, from the reactions in this thread, that they would just as easily condemn servers for pointing out the rudeness.

Don't worry, I think the silent majority is on your side.

If someone is defending "customer is always right", then they've probably never had a client from hell.

Which is why you need to cultivate a zen-like calm when dealing with them, otherwise they will hurt you

I agree with your position.

People have become so entitled in all aspects of life, that they forget that there are people on the other end of their abuse.

The capitalist motto that "the customer is always right" has created the most entitled generation of rude and abusive customers.

That's why I don't purchase software without a middle man. If I buy something from the Apple AppStore I know that I will get a refund if the things don't work out as expected. The %30 cut that Apple gets is the distributed price of all those developers that decide that It's all over once they receive the money.

I give no-questions-asked refunds.

Not having to deal with frigle egos is also part of the experience. There's something very disturbing about getting into an argument with a seller.

The seller screws you over? Leave the 1 star review, get your refund and don't have to look back.