Put a sustainable pricing model in place that can afford support staff.
Sure, a bunch of cheapskates will up and leave - there will surely be a second rate competitor who will pick them up and offer the same poor or nonexistent support all over again.
One thing I learned from experience is that it's the people who pay the least who are the neediest and most frustrating to deal with.
As someone who has partaken in a support organization where 99% were annual payments and 1% were "golden licenses" (pay once, never again), I can confirm that the 1% were by far the worst.
And even if it's not technically a service, but say some closed source software or whatever, the same idea still applies for future bug fixes and maintenance, at least in my mind. At least for anything semi-critical.
That said, support as a subscription (or alternatively, pay-per-issue) is totally fine by me. I'm also fine if new features are added to Version 2, and I later have to decide whether to upgrade or not.
And although it is not about the money for me, it frequently does pay off. I usually opt for the longest recurring subscription (if lifetime is not available) which usually has steep discounts and in the case of my XM radio... still enjoying that lifetime subscription.
There's a potential that you're paying a huge premium (that you don't even see) just for the enjoyment of being rude to customers. Maybe that's something you value extremely highly, I don't know.
Sure, that's true.
> for the enjoyment of being rude to customers
I was rude to customers? For pointing out they can't talk to me like that? I may have gotten the definition of "rude" wrong.
"You don't think that was rude from them in the first place, I am answering in the same manner they talked to me. If they don't want it, then they should learn to talk nicer to me in the first place. Instead of assuming they can say whatever they want and get away with it.".
Interestingly, in the last decade my relatives have been a lot more polite with me when we talk.
Besides, people like the customer in question come once in a decade (to me, anyway), so it hasn't been a problem.
In this case, I'd pay money to not deal with a customer like that.
In the general case, I agree that you would lose money by not tolerating rudeness, but think that one generally has a societal responsibility to call out bad behaviour, to let people know that that's not acceptable. Also, I think that rude customers are generally not worth it because they tend to cost more than they bring in, statistically.
So while income could be maximized by acting differently, Stavros chooses to optimize for his well being instead.
??????
It does not enter his mind that normally I make a third of that and so I am very happy with the windfall. Heck, with hindsight I could see how I could have also made a million, but only by worrying over every dollars I invested. There is more to life than spend all your time thinking about how to make more money. I have gone camping, hiking and living at a cabin by a river. He on the other hand sound like he spent the entire year glued to his computer monitor trying to make more.
Is it a bad thing necessarily? If this customer brings more trouble than value, that wouldn't it be the best move to dump it to a competitor?