I still think about my lost address that I obtained when Gmail was invite only. My family still occasionally CCs it and it drives me nuts, I would pay money to at least have it shutdown so they don’t think I received an email. I had email forwarding to another address when stolen and immediately after it was stolen it had the weirdest messages, I tried multiple ways reaching out to google and it still bugs me I was unsuccessful. I’d love the their of my account to at least have it shutdown

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gleenn 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe you should send it enough mail to fill it up and the it would reject emails? Send a bunch of emails with large attachments and avoid getting marked as spam.

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firefax 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I got mine when it was invite only too, I had it a very long time.

I use protonmail now -- I think the "free" model enables providers to shrug and go "hey you don't pay us" (if there is support at all -- I've never been able to speak to a human about this issue)

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colechristensen 11 hours ago | parent [-]

>I think the "free" model enables providers to shrug and go "hey you don't pay us" (if there is support at all -- I've never been able to speak to a human about this issue)

I also have paid services a lot of money where customer service was nonexistent until I did a credit card chargeback or raised an issue with government regulators.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what I want to push my state legislature to encode into law with regards to customer service minimums that would cover anyone doing business in the state, free or paid.

	▲	bruce511 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm in the camp that paying makes you a customer. Inversely using a free service makes you a user, not a customer. And as you correctly note, there I'd no "user service" department. You can of course push for any law you like, but I expect laws protecting "users" to be toothless. Basically the TOS will boil down to "we can do anything we like" - which I guess is more or less what they say now. I find it helpful to think of users as distinct from customers because it let's you understand the provider company motivations. For example, Google's customer's are advertisers. Hence they cull services not conducive to advertising. Most startups see VCs as the customer. Their business model is to sell shares to VCs in round after round. Seen in that light their attitude to users is rational and users only exist as props to VC sales. VCs (and founders) are chasing an exit, which is usually acquisition or aquihire. Your use of the service will thus rarely survive the exit. These are not things to be outraged about. They are all completely rational and predictable outcomes. When you use a service, these are factors you should evaluate.