This sort of thing is not restricted to the online world. When the predecessor of Zipcar started up over here I joined as a 'founder member' by paying about £125 up front which reduced the overall cost of membership, and which they promised I could have back in full if I left. I barely ever hired a car from them, but I liked the convenience of being able to at any time, for a low, low price.
When they grew and became more popular their original business model must have stopped working because they spent a lot of time and effort trying to get me to switch to a different model, which had absolutely no benefits for me, and plenty of costs (monthly fees, when I never borrowed a car from one month to the next). When the big, bad American wolf, Zipcar, took them over they decided to play hardball, and made me an offer I couldn't refuse, which was to take my £125-, leave, and rejoin if I wanted on their horrible terms, or forego the option to recover my £125- but continue to pay on use, rather than a monthly fee. So the lesson is, take start-up 'lifetime' promises and deals with a pinch of salt - they're just trying to buy customers and will turn on you eventually. B > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Igor Roshchin > Sent: 02 August 2012 15:36 > To: [email protected] > Subject: OT - saga of fotki.com - beginning of the end? > > > > If you haven't heard about what fotki.com did about two months ago: > http://clickglide.com/?p=844 > > I heard about some people who had bought "life memebership" and now > were requested to pay additional fees, and were denied easy access to > the originals. > > I wonder if independent photohosting sites without big players behind > them (Google, Yahoo, etc.) would be surviving, as many people who don't > care for particular features are switching to using FB and G+ for > showing thousands of their unsorted snapshots. > > Igor > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
