←back to thread

Ground control to Major Trial

(virtualize.sh)
483 points plam503711 | 7 comments | 16 May 25 12:03 UTC | HN request time: 1.195s | source | bottom
Show context
florbnit ◴[16 May 25 12:21 UTC] No.44004552[source]▶
> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art.

Oh for the love of tech, do chase them. This absolutely has to be in void of the terms of your trial take them to court. If not, then at the very least name and shame the company, so some dumb manager orchestrating this silly theft will get fired and someone more mature can be rotated in.

replies(7): >>44004613 #>>44004622 #>>44004679 #>>44004709 #>>44005332 #>>44007040 #>>44009381 #
1. mytailorisrich ◴[16 May 25 12:38 UTC] No.44004709[source]▶
Devil's advocate: If supplying an email address opens up a 30 day free trial, you can hardly complain when people do supply email addresses... especially when, to smooth the experience, there is absolutely nothing else but a email address field and a "start free trial" button.

People will always find ways to use things to the limit or abuse them. You need to consider where to put the limit to balance user experience vs. preventing abuse.

replies(2): >>44004775 #>>44004866 #
2. plam503711 ◴[16 May 25 12:43 UTC] No.44004775[source]▶
Well, now I’ve seen it — and yes, lesson learned. But here’s the good news about humanity: they’re the only ones abusing it at this scale. So far, it seems most people still choose sanity over spreadsheets of throwaway emails.
replies(1): >>44004853 #
3. mytailorisrich ◴[16 May 25 12:51 UTC] No.44004853[source]▶
Whenever someone asks "but who's gonna do that??" the real world answer is always "Well..." for better or worse ;)
4. cogman10 ◴[16 May 25 12:53 UTC] No.44004866[source]▶
We'd have to see the ToS, but I'd suspect the lawyer that wrote it didn't say email, they said individual. Further, I suspect there's a clause in there about commercial usage.
replies(1): >>44005123 #
5. mytailorisrich ◴[16 May 25 13:15 UTC] No.44005123[source]▶
Then you need an explicit check box "I have read and accept the T&C" and those T&Cs allow you to block an account, which is often the most effective option against abusers. If you go legal every time someone abuses a free trial you might as well give up free trials.

As things stand there is no point in going legal. Either let it slide or block them and use it for PR with a blog post and an HN submission (wait a minute ;)

replies(1): >>44006166 #
6. cogman10 ◴[16 May 25 14:49 UTC] No.44006166{3}[source]▶
> If you go legal every time someone abuses a free trial you might as well give up free trials.

What silly "all or nothing" thinking.

You don't have to "go legal" on every free trial abuse, just the egregious ones. Here we have a company that's been abusing the free trial for 10 years and 1000s of instances. Vates rightfully can claim millions (~40M to be exact) from this instance. The company, in particular, can't claim they didn't know this wasn't allowed because they automated creating fake email accounts to abuse the situation.

It's particularly more egregious because Vates allows companies to build and maintain the software directly without support for free.

replies(1): >>44006637 #
7. mytailorisrich ◴[16 May 25 15:27 UTC] No.44006637{4}[source]▶
Guidelines:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."