On 21 December 2011 13:46, Nathan Eisenberg <nat...@atlasnetworks.us> wrote:
> I've always strongly felt that this was a rather foul business practice, > wherever I've seen it. The justification for it is the utterly misguided > belief that, if allowed to, customers will pay for a month then cancel > their subscription and 'coast' on the 'current' version of the signature > for a year. This approach suffers from (at least) two fundamental flaws: > > 1) The entire customer base are treated as hostile. It is no surprise > that they resent this. (Assumption: having resentful customers is bad) > 2) Spam is, perhaps moreso than ever, a rapidly evolving threat. The > effectiveness of signatures declines dramatically with time, which means > that August's signatures have little value by December. [By the way, it > seems to me that if they're willing to charge for valueless signatures, > that represents either A) doubt as to the value of the current signatures, > or B) disbelief in the decreasing value of out of date signatures.] > > While I realize that car insurance might not be the best analogy subject, > imagine if you put your car on blocks, went off to college and allowed the > insurance to lapse whilst you were there. When you return, the insurance > company wants you to pay the last three years of insurance in order to > reactivate your policy. That companies customers would react in the same > way: they would find a new provider to do business with, rather than pay > out for a valueless bit of smoke and mirrors. > > Nathan Eisenberg > Exactly. And when you consider the fact that most anyone can roll their own solution with Postfix, Postgrey, a few RBLs, and Spamassassin that works just as well - if not better than a Barracuda, trying to justify back charging is even more unbelievable.