At 9/30/03 11:53 AM, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote:
>> I don't think my mistrust is irrational. After all, Tucows introduced
>> e-mail service over exactly the same kind of objections,
>> after originally
>> saying that they had no intention of offering services that
>> compete with
>> their original target market (the small-to-medium technically
>> knowledgeable ISP who needs things like domain registration, secure
>> certificates, payment gateway services, etc.).
>
>There's just so far one can grow a business solely on that maket. Do you
>think they have some obligation to honor a blood oath in perpetuity here, to
>stop growing or disband so as not to interfere with you?
Of course not; don't be silly. Later in the message, I wrote as much:
>Of course, companies and markets change; I can certainly see how OpenSRS
>could decide to focus on new markets, making more money by doing so, and
>can't blame them if that's the case.
My point was simply that as OpenSRS changes their target market, I may
well go elsewhere. I'm not under any illusion that I make a difference,
but if many others feel the same way, that may make a difference.
>> The introduction of turnkey e-mail, and the future introduction of
>> Blogware, are a fairly clear move towards providing services that are
>> traditionally offered at a retail level, being sold by Tucows (as I
>> mentioned) by what amounts to little more an affiliate program.
>
>No, it amounts to a service provider program. The service is customer
>service, though, not bit-moving.
The "service" provided by the reseller under these models is nothing more
than marketing and first-level tech support: answering the phone and
helping people who have lost their password, etc. That's it. There's no
way a reseller can debug a mail service problem, for example, and no
requirement that they understand how these services work.
I stand by my assertion that this is more like how an affiliate program
operates than how "traditional" Tucows resellers operate.
>That's the point: they should NEVER say "never" about anything.
Exactly. Which makes it relevant for people to say "Tucows would annoy me
if they do X, Y or Z", so that Tucows knows that there is opposition to
things that they may consider from time to time. I make no apology for
stating my unequivocal opposition to these kinds of services whenever
they're rumored; it's free market research for Tucows without the bother
of sending out surveys :-)
-- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
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