Joyent Drops Lifetime Account Holders 443
New submitter samnorsk writes "I've long been a lifetime account holder of an old textdrive (now Joyent) cloud hosting account. I remember purchasing the account back in college for a few hundred bucks when I really didn't have the money to spend. At the time, I thought that the opportunity to have a persistent lifetime shell / web hosting account would be valuable. This would be a resource I could fall back on no matter what my current situation was. Now, I just received an email stating that Joyent intends to shut down my lifetime account. Quoting: 'We appreciate and value you as one of Joyent's lifetime Shared Hosting customers. As this service is one of our earliest offerings, and has now run its course, your lifetime service will end on October 31, 2012.' They do offer a 512MB cloud machine for one year, but presumably if we don't take that, we're done. In any case, our lifetime commitment would still be dropped in one year if we take that offer. How is it fair or legal for a 'lifetime account' to end when it is no longer convenient for the company? For reference, this was the original offer. In it, they state: 'How long is it good for? As long as we exist.'"
Re:Recourse (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't say anything of the sort under their Terms of Service at the time, available through the wayback link.
Re:Ask for a refund (Score:5, Informative)
From their terms of service [archive.org] at the time of the offer, remedies are limited to refund of the amount paid and disputes over $250 must be arbitrated. "Lifetime" is not defined but their offer clearly says "as long as we exist" and they do still exist. If it were me, I would go for the refund and be thankful for 6 years of free use.
Re:Recourse (Score:3, Informative)
\ Joyent may in fact already know this and calculated it cheaper to settle on offering a lifetime account again --on a per user basis--.
Given that all the responses on their forum say something to the effect of "contact support and we'll work it out" I think you may have a point.
Re:Ask for a refund (Score:5, Informative)
"Copyright 2004–2006 TextDrive Inc. TextDrive is a trademark of Joyent Inc."
It looks to me like the agreement was with Joyent the whole time. At the very least they were a party to the agreement. Joyent still exists.
Update (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. People buy just the assets of companies and leave behind the debt and liabilities all the time to the original owners.
No, they don't. Barring a bankrupcy, you simply cannot just buy the assets w/o inheriting the liabilities. I'm sure a lot of people and companies would like thta to be true, but under the lawy, itt doesn't work like that at all.
Full TOS (Score:4, Informative)
This is the full ToS from TextDrive from when this offer was available:
TextDrive Terms of Service
The following terms and conditions (these “Terms”) govern the provision by TEXTDRIVE, INC. (“Company”) of the services and/or products (referred collectively herein as “Services and Products”) described on the Server Order Form, the Service Level Agreement and Service Exhibit attached hereto (collectively the “Service Descriptions”) and defined in any of the Company’s product support listing, to the customer (“Customer”) identified on the Service Descriptions. The Service Descriptions, these Terms and the attachments and any addenda hereto, executed with respect to the Services and Products, are referred to herein, collectively, as this “Agreement.”
Our Hosting Services
Maximum Hard Disk Space. Customer will be provided with the amount of disk space stated in either their dedicated quote or corresponding plan from http://textdrive.com/plans/ [textdrive.com]. Disk space and usage are monitored by TextDrive, Inc., when possible quotas are soft and responsible overages should not impair Customer’s ability to access said disk space. Customers are responsible for purchasing additional disk space beyond that detailed in their “Plan” or to remove files in order to bring their usage with their Plans’s limit.
Jurisdiction and Jurisdictional Disputes. TextDrive Inc is a California corporation. The parties recognize that TextDrive, Inc is under the legal jurisdiction of the State of California, and US federal law. The parties expressly recognize that, where TextDrive, Inc. is acting solely as Customer’s Host, TextDrive, Inc. is not engaged in, and is not actively soliciting, interstate or international commerce for said Customer. Where TextDrive, Inc. is a named party to any type of dispute or litigation involving any acts by Customer that affect out-of-state persons or entities, Customer agrees that it shall indemnify, hold TextDrive Inc. harmless, defend TextDrive, Inc. and challenge the jurisdiction of out of state authorities over TextDrive, Inc.
Storage, Backups and Internet Link. TextDrive Inc. shall store Customer’s Web Sites and Email messages on TextDrive Inc’s servers. The parties expressly recognize that Internet servers and links are susceptible to crashes and down time. TextDrive, Inc. warrants that it shall maintain a consistent link with the Internet, but TextDrive, Inc. cannot and does not warrant that it shall maintain a continuous and uninterrupted link. However, TextDrive, Inc does pass through the following Service Level Agreement from it’s Managed Hosting Provider (NextLevel Internet, Inc. of San Diego, California) and that is 100% Power Uptime and 100% Network Uptime. TextDrive Inc. does monitor all services on our servers at minimum of 5-minute intervals.
Bandwidth. TextDrive, Inc agrees that it shall maintain a 100Mbps connection to each server, however, TextDrive, Inc. does not warrant any response rate or download time beyond it’s control, as this is depending on Customer’s and End Users ISP connections.
Maintenance. TextDrive Inc. may, at its own discretion, temporarily suspend all service for the purpose of repair, maintenance or improvement of any of its systems. However, TextDrive, Inc. shall provide prior notice where it is reasonably practicable under the circumstances, and shall restore service as soon as is reasonably practicable. Customer shall not be entitled to any setoff, discount, refund or other credit, in case of any service outage which is beyond TextDrive Inc’s control or which is reasonable in duration.
Security. The parties expressly recognize that it is impossible to maintain flawless security, but TextDrive, Inc. shall take reasonable steps to prevent security breaches in server interactions with Customer and security breaches in TextDrive Inc’s server interaction with resource
Re:Ask for a refund (Score:5, Informative)
Bingo. Wish I had mod points for you. His agreement was with Joyent. I do not believe the new owners have to honor that agreement as Joyent no longer exists.
Absolutely Not, the only way to get out of that agreement is a refund or bankruptcy, you can't just buy the assets when you buy a company, liabilities and commitments both are transferred to the purchasing company. Before the Rickets bought the Cubs the Cubs filed for Bankruptcy so that any liens from the Tribune could not follow the Cubs to their new owner. When Fiat bought Chrysler they still have to honor all commitments that were not wiped in the bankruptcy pensions, warranties, loans all were honored if the bankruptcy didn't release them from it. If the world worked the way you think it does I could get a loan from the bank for my LLC then sell the company to my brother for $1 but the debt would not follow and since it was an LLC I would not be personally held liable and my brother would get the pile of cash.
Re:Recourse Steam (Score:4, Informative)
Except Steam have already made it publicly known that they have a procedure in place to ensure you don't lose access to games in the event that they have to close doors.
Re:Recourse Steam (Score:4, Informative)
Bankruptcy lets a company renege on its obligations. If the company goes bankrupt, the bankruptcy court gets to decide whether the company has to make good on the "promise" that you can keep accessing your games. They may very well decide that the company should pay all its money to creditors and not use any money to pay for programmers, servers, or customer service people to give you access to your games. They might decide that the company should do it anyway to avoid losing intangible goodwill value, but they by no means have to.
Re:Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Recourse (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and I almost forgot the most obvious and on point...
TextDrive, Inc shall not be liable for delays or defaults. TextDrive, Inc shall not be liable for delays or defaults in furnishing goods or services hereunder, if such delays or defaults on the part of TextDrive, Inc are due to: Acts of God or of a public enemy; Acts of the United States or any state or political subdivision thereof; Fires, severe weather, floods, earthquakes, natural disasters, explosions or other catastrophes; Embargoes, epidemics or quarantine restrictions; Shortage of goods, labor strikes, slowdowns, differences with workmen or labor stoppages of any kind; Delays of supplier or delay of transportation for any reason; Causes beyond the control of TextDrive, Inc. in furnishing items or services including, but not limited to, breakdown or failure of machinery or equipment, or delay in Client reporting problems or furnishing information or materials. Acceptance of delivery of goods or services shall constitute a waiver and release of TextDrive, Inc by Client for any claim for damages, setoff, discount or other liability on account of delay.
Re:Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
1. Joyent isn't textdrive, i.e. textdrive doesn't exist anymore, so the lifetime obligation has been exhausted.
Given that the summary linked to the original offer...
We're pleased to announce a special offer that combines three great products in our family -- TextDrive, Strongspace and Joyent -- available for a one-time payment of just $499.
Want to try that again?
2. Whose lifetime? The service's, i.e. no shorter than its lifetime.
What they said was
As long as we exist.
The thing is, even though TextDrive, Inc. no longer exists, "three products in our family" and including two products other than TextDrive makes the offer explicitly from the parent company Joyent, Inc. The same company which still hosts the article author's site.
Re:Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
Not true at all. You can buy a company's assets and none of their liabilities. It's called a "bulk sale of assets". How this is done varies by state, but it's done all the time. Is it fair? That's another story and a problem for liability holders. It's also one of the problems with corporate law and how it's unevenly applied across jurisdictions.
Re:Recourse (Score:4, Informative)
Also, I just went cross-eyed in the ToS. I saw no provision that said they could terminate or otherwise suspend this service or promise. They are allowed to if someone violates the ToS, but I don't see anything about updating or changing the ToS being allowed.
IANAL and YMMV, but I think there could be a standing for a class-action action here.
Re:Recourse (Score:5, Informative)
$500 for 6 years of service comes out to about $6.94 per month. That isn't a particularly good deal. In fact, it's actually pretty darn expensive when you put a pencil to it. Much cheaper than their current hosting plans, mind you, but compared with the competition, it's highway robbery. For comparison, two bucks more per month from Dreamhost (in two-year blocks) or nearly a buck less from HostGator (in three-year blocks) gets you unlimited web storage (versus 2 GB), unlimited monthly bandwidth (versus 20 GB), unlimited databases (versus 20), and unlimited hosted domains (versus 15).
No, this isn't $500 worth. It's maybe $150-200 worth at best.
For the kind of money they paid for the service, that's a good way to get such negative reviews that you quickly find yourself without customers.
Then again, so is dumping a large chunk of your customer base, so odds are, this company is desperate because they're struggling to pay the bills. I wouldn't trust them to host my lolcats site, much less anything that I cared about.
Re:ask for more than that (Score:5, Informative)
The woman had fucking third-degree burns throughout her crotch and thighs. A surgeon had to literally rebuild her labia and vagina. Hundreds of people had received second and third degree burns from McDonald's coffee in the years leading up to the suit, including instances when employees spilled the coffee on patrons. McDonald's specifically acknowledged even before that particular incident that the coffee was dangerously hot and unfit for consumption at the time of sale, yet still made a firm and specific corporate policy of setting every coffee maker to that temperature.
It was categorical, institutional recklessness that severely injured hundreds of people over more than a decade, but when one woman actually sues and wins over this everyone dismisses her as a cash-grabbing crackpot. That's what lawsuits are for; when some entity is fucking people over and won't respond to any other pleading or incentive.
Half of the 'frivolous' lawsuits out there are completely reasonable and proper grievances that corporations have sneakily re-framed as whiny bullshit. Because how dare the peons think there's an even playing field for them somewhere?! Courts are for corporations to get things done, not the people! Just because some jerk sues Dairy Queen over melted ice cream - and every comedian or 'human interest' journalist in the nation takes a crack at that moron - doesn't mean you can snidely dismiss every individual vs. corporate lawsuit without a second glance.