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Old 16 Feb 2021, 08:39 PM   #31
JamesHenderson
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Originally Posted by lpn View Post
There are reasonable ways to make money and there is desperate upselling. Makes you think why they would do this.
I am not aware of any other paid email provider practically limiting the ability to use third-party apps on a paid plan by forcing users to more expensive plans.
...but isn't it also fair to say that not many other paid-for email providers offer a package that cheap either?
$5/month is not unreasonable today.
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Old 16 Feb 2021, 08:46 PM   #32
TenFour
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I have a sent.com domain and lots of times people complain that I am in their junk mail folder, its mainly M/S accounts or business email accounts.
Microsoft is notoriously arbitrary about what goes into Junk, and it is not possible to get them to change it. The worst problem is that they aren't consistent. For example, some of my own internal business email goes into spam, but other emails from the same email address are delivered. No rhyme or reason. I can mark "not spam," add to contacts, and do everything just right and it doesn't matter--sometimes in Junk, other times delivered. Essentially, if you use Microsoft email you must routinely check the Junk folder.
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Old 17 Feb 2021, 01:21 AM   #33
SideshowBob
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Originally Posted by JamesHenderson View Post
...but isn't it also fair to say that not many other paid-for email providers offer a package that cheap either?
Some provide full domain hosting at around $10 pa.

The main problem with the basic account is that it doesn't support hosting, so you are locked in to their domains. If they end up targeting Hey's price points that could prove expensive.
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Old 17 Feb 2021, 07:44 AM   #34
guest2k
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Originally Posted by lpn View Post
There are reasonable ways to make money and there is desperate upselling. Makes you think why they would do this.
I am not aware of any other paid email provider practically limiting the ability to use third-party apps on a paid plan by forcing users to more expensive plans.
Well, as I grow older, I've learned that ...in business, the more unethical you are, the more money you make. Look around the world, one example is Apple.

They sell the phone, but didn't include the fast charger for the phone like other android cell phone has. They sold it separately for more money. They could have included it. They also sold their Mfi technology to any company that wants to produce charging cable, but each cable the company sells, Apple will earn $5/each.

Fastmail is just an ant comparing to the big "Apple", but they're trying to get where they want to be.
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Old 17 Feb 2021, 06:15 PM   #35
pjroutledge
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Similar thing happening with Lastpass: http://emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=78511

Maybe we're seeing a more general trend to encourage people to pay for services.
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Old 17 Feb 2021, 09:54 PM   #36
Berenburger
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Originally Posted by pjroutledge View Post
Similar thing happening with Lastpass: http://emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=78511

Maybe we're seeing a more general trend to encourage people to pay for services.
I'm not against it in this case. I don't like that my most confidential information is being entrusted to a "free" service.
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Old 17 Feb 2021, 11:13 PM   #37
TenFour
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Every for-profit company charges what they think the market will bear and will maximize their profits. This is nothing new. Prices change too. Everyone uses free services to entice new customers, and then they try to design the systems to make it difficult or unpleasant to leave. Some recent examples that come to mind include Google's charging for Photos and Drive storage or a few year's back Microsoft OneDrive going from unlimited storage to paid. It isn't unethical or surprising at all. I understand it is painful for those that see the price increase or service degrade, but it should always be expected. We all need to avoid lock-in as much as possible, and have alternate products and services in mind in case a change becomes too painful for you.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 01:16 AM   #38
lpn
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Originally Posted by JamesHenderson View Post
...but isn't it also fair to say that not many other paid-for email providers offer a package that cheap either?
$5/month is not unreasonable today.
There are at least few provides that offer similar specs at similar prices as the Fastmail's $5 plan. There are some (inbox.eu) that are way cheaper. But I am not questioning the utility of the $5 plan. What I am questioning is the unnecessary (at least for me) lack of a basic functionality on a paid plan (the $3/mo). For me all paid plans should have all basic functionality and the differentiation should be based on numbers (size of storage, numbers of aliases), or on premium features, but not on the basic ones.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 02:16 AM   #39
placebo
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For me all paid plans should have all basic functionality and the differentiation should be based on numbers (size of storage, numbers of aliases), or on premium features, but not on the basic ones.
This is my take as well. It's not so much that changing in the Basic plan was unethical; it was that removing such basic functionality comes across as kind of a jerk move on FastMail's part. Perhaps there are mitigating reasons that make the decision understandable, but my current perspective is that it's really just a way to get customers to pay for features they don't need (like large quotas) to get a basic one they do.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 02:24 AM   #40
n5bb
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I think that most new prospects for the Basic account will be younger people who use apps on a mobile device or tablet. They can still use the Fastmail iOS or Android app with a Basic account, and on a PC they can use webmail. If they use an email client, it's probably only for their job which requires use of Outlook. Nearly everyone I know uses Gmail, Outlook.com (old Hotmail), and Yahoo email using a browser if they are on a PC or Mac.

The concept of an "email client" is technobabble for the vast majority of people. Their phone or tablet is always connected to the internet while in use, and they are only using an app or a web browser. The people who come to this forum are not a representative sample of new Fastmail Basic users, who use text messaging and other messaging systems for most of their casual conversations. Few of them will notice the loss, and Fastmail will have less chance of spammers using Basic accounts.

Bill
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 02:49 AM   #41
lpn
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Originally Posted by n5bb View Post
I think that most new prospects for the Basic account will be younger people who use apps on a mobile device or tablet. They can still use the Fastmail iOS or Android app with a Basic account, and on a PC they can use webmail. If they use an email client, it's probably only for their job which requires use of Outlook. Nearly everyone I know uses Gmail, Outlook.com (old Hotmail), and Yahoo email using a browser if they are on a PC or Mac.

The concept of an "email client" is technobabble for the vast majority of people. Their phone or tablet is always connected to the internet while in use, and they are only using an app or a web browser. The people who come to this forum are not a representative sample of new Fastmail Basic users, who use text messaging and other messaging systems for most of their casual conversations. Few of them will notice the loss, and Fastmail will have less chance of spammers using Basic accounts.

Bill
Interesting insight, does it come from some kind of Fastmail research? I would understand if most of the Basic plan clients use email clients thus increasing the system load which would mean higher infrastructure cost (although I don't believe this as many even cheaper providers have unrestricted IMAP). But if you say that just few Basic plan users would be affected, this means that it is not a cost-reducing play, but an upsell.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 03:17 AM   #42
n5bb
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... But if you say that just few Basic plan users would be affected, this means that it is not a cost-reducing play, but an upsell.
No current Basic plan users are affected since current Basic plan users can still use email clients. My point is that this only affects new Basic plan prospects, and my guess is that Fastmail has determined that few new low-end users have an interest in use of an email client and so there is no business case for continuing to offer that feature. Support for email clients is expensive, since Fastmail has to deal with users configuring third party software.

Of course, Fastmail wants more users on higher plans. It's hard for us on the outside to know of their reasons, but my guess is that very few prospective new Basic users will notice the loss of IMAP/SMTP, since they never use email clients.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 06:27 AM   #43
TenFour
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my guess is that very few prospective new Basic users will notice the loss of IMAP/SMTP, since they never use email clients.
Not so sure about that since almost everyone is using a smartphone and in most cases they use whatever the default email app is that comes with the phone, and that is not the Fastmail app.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 06:52 AM   #44
digp
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Exactly.

This is just an exercise in money grabbing.

Fastmail have removed the ability to use your email out of the box with Apple Mail etc.
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Old 18 Feb 2021, 10:20 AM   #45
somdcomputerguy
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I have a 'legacy' standard account I guess. Anyway individual App passwords (and specific passwords for different services) are available to me now and I hope they will be still part of my renewed account when my renewal is due in September. Last year I decided to renew for another 3 years. I think a Support question Ticket or something is in order here. Good thing there's a few months before I have to really decide if this is an important enough task to proceed with.

- Bruce
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