![]() There really isn't any good free 3rd party alternative out there that I've seen. Just another example of making users "regret upgrading". We even bought a license, but having to bump someone from the machine it's registered on just to remote into someone else here is a hassle. That, combined with the obsession about not wanting you to install your licensed copy on more than one support computer (despite being totally online and trivially blocked from simultaneous instances) lead me to drop my support for them as well. It also "upgraded your account" online so you can no longer run the older unlimited version of teamviewer. This was not mentioned to the users prior to running the update. TeamViewer recently pushed an "update" that imposes a fairly short time limit on the free connections. Now I'm not saying they were in the wrong - far from it, legally speaking they were dead in the right, but their lack of good will has ensured all future servers we commission will be hosted elsewhere. ![]() So we had to pay for 11 months of hosting for a server that died (so they haven't actually been hosting it) because they refused to be reasonable and instead stuck rigidly to the contract terms. They flatly refused - sure, the contract doesn't say they have to do that, but it would seem to be a reasonable thing to do from a good-will perspective. Coincidentally, the contract was up for renewal for another of our servers at the same time, so we asked them to transfer the remaining 11 months on the contract for the failed server over to that server. ![]() We pay for 12 months of hosting up-front, and about a month after we paid for one of our servers, the server failed and we decided to retire it. They are over-priced, but we've been happy with their customer service so haven't switched to a cheaper datacentre. I'll give you a real world example: I have a bunch of servers in datacentres run by Host-It. And peeved customers aren't the kind of people to continue to be customers, which is important where you're withdrawing the free service in the hope that many of your "free" customers will move to the paid service - if you pissed them off then they probably won't. *However*, in just the same way as a customer might be peeved when a supplier sticks rigidly to the contract terms instead of offering some good-will flexibility, a customer of a free service is going to be a bit peeved by this kind of no-notice change to the service. No one is entitled to anything above and beyond what the contract says - no contract, no entitlement. Then the service/product gets changed/removed/etc and everyone yells at the owner about how they feel shafted instead of *thanking* the owner for providing such a useful service for free for so long.Įveryone feels entitled to get whatever they want for free. Someone offers a service/product for free. You were making backups right? When LogMeIn, Google whatever, Facebook, etc, go belly up, get bought out, Ok, so there's replication and actual migration, but the point is email is standard and you can pick and choose at will if one service goes away. I'd say "if you rely on a third-party web service with no alternatives or exit plans, then you're screwed whether you pay for it or not." Relying on a third-party email provider is pretty easy, just point your MX record at the new server, bam, you're migrated. The truth is, I don't know of an easy answer. What's the answer? I suppose I should say, "do it all yourself" but that can be a tall order, especially if you need to sync mobile devices or multiple operating systems. That said, I use gmail and Google calendar. I don't want to buy shares of your company. If you rely on a free web service to run a business. If you rely on a free web service for personal use, you could be in for a shock. Even paid services get acquired, merged, destroyed. Isn't that the most important lesson from all of this? Google cancels stuff willy-nilly (admittedly with decent notice). ![]() That's the problem with depending on a "free" service.
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