By Nic Lindh on Thursday, 16 August 2012
UPDATE Aug. 22, 2012: Joyent has come to its senses and offered a refund or 5 years credit for hosting. Personally, I never wanted a refund, but I wanted the offer of a refund. So, the nerd rage is receding, though I for one remain upset about the passive-aggressive tone of the original email and the execrable way Joyent has been communication during this upset. /UPDATE
I’ve been a Joyent customer since 2005, when I signed up for one of their “VC” deals, where they were trying to bootstrap the company and offered lifetime accounts in exchange for several hundred dollars up front. It was a great deal and I jumped on it. Apart from the obviously great deal of having all my hosting paid up forever, it felt great to help a cool company, a zero bullshit company.
Today I woke up to an email that began:
We’ve been analyzing customer usage of Joyent’s systems and noticed that you are one of the few customers that are still on our early products and have not migrated to our new platform, the Joyent Cloud.
That’s right. The company I helped bootstrap—yes, I know, in an infinitesimal way, but still—is blaming me for using the product I paid for. I don’t think there’s any way to get more passive-aggressive than that.
Now, I understand the company has changed, technology has changed, they have to adapt, blah blah. I get that and have no problem with it. But insinuating I’m doing something wrong? That’s pretty low.
I’m incredibly disappointed. But I can take a hint. So now my sites, including this one, are hosted by WebFaction. The DNS has barely propagated, but there it is. I’ll keep paying them and hopefully they’ll keep hosting me.
It reminds me of the old joke:
“How do you say ‘eff you’ in California?”
“Trust me.”
(If you’re interested, you can experience the nerd rage this is causing on Joyent’s own community forums.)