Re: Well Lookie Here, Barracuda Networks tries to get me to fall into their trap again...

[Jeremy Parr <jeremyparr () gmail com>]

On 21 December 2011 13:46, Nathan Eisenberg <nathan () 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 or B) disbelief in the decreasing value of out of date signatures.]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.