Yes, the intent was to not profit off the situation. It's why the free accounts are lifetime ones and not something that expires and then forces the user(s) to pay.
If there's anything to be done to make that more clear we're happy to update the offer.
After going back and reading my original post I realise I didn't make clear my problem, at all, please accept my apologies.
I guess what I was trying to say is:
Though you aren't financially profiting. You still gain publicity through this promotion at a time when the product you are offering is likely to be the last thing on many people in the affected areas mind. IMO it's a little distasteful.
I do however understand that it's done with the best intentions. I also agree with points made by others that maybe a different action might have come across more positive at a time like this (donations to a charity etc).
I'm nowhere near the disaster area being in the U.K but are there charities directly involved in clearing up the mess and helping people out that you could have donated to?
This really isn't an issue of what should we be doing and is what we're doing enough. That's a larger question and applies every tragedy.
As a business (and a startup) we aren't involved in any specific charitable organization. This one seemed to align with our goals as a company. And even more as an open source company who received funding from the Shuttleworth Foundation.
Will be gain publicity? Probably. I hope so. But that doesn't mean we can't offer our services to people who might need it, even if it's not the most important thing on their mind right now.
So yes, I agree with you philosophically. But pragmatically, not as much.
This seems like an iffy marketing thing to do to try to advertise and get users. Why not detail what else you've done to help those whose lives were upended by the hurricane? Why does your business have to come into it at all? Did you do anything other than decide to arbitrarily give not-really-free accounts to people when that won't help them rebuild afterward? (If you're still charging them $.01 a year, that's still charging them something. You ought to fix that.)
Either way, looks like a nice gesture, but one that's ultimately meaningless since I doubt a lot of the victims care about your service. It's rather useless compared to actual help.
I understand your points. It's why we wanted to give free unlimited lifetime accounts instead of a free year or something else to monetize.
> It's rather useless compared to actual help.
Arguments against helping in ways that have specific impact (providing food, assisting with relocation, etc) are a straw man. It's not better to do nothing than something of small value.
I have plenty of photo albums in my closet and if those somehow got lost or destroyed then I'd be devastated (more than any other physical object in my house).
> If you're still charging them $.01 a year, that's still charging them something. You ought to fix that.
Really? If we get more feedback like that then we're happy to change or give refunds. We're set up for subscriptions so it's the easiest way to do address verification. If a penny a year is too much, we'll gladly fix it.
> Arguments against helping in ways that have specific impact (providing food, assisting with relocation, etc) are a straw man. It's not better to do nothing than something of small value.
My argument isn't to do nothing - again, this looks like a nice gesture - but that you should do more. Maybe take all your earnings for a month and donate them to help the victims. You can evidently afford to give out almost-free accounts, can you do anything better?
> I have plenty of photo albums in my closet and if those somehow got lost or destroyed then I'd be devastated (more than any other physical object in my house).
Then scan them and throw them on Dropbox. Your service actively costs the victims money, Dropbox does not, so which helps more?
> Really? If we get more feedback like that then we're happy to change or give refunds. We're set up for subscriptions so it's the easiest way to do address verification. If a penny a year is too much, we'll gladly fix it.
These are people who are already financially strained by the hurricane. They may not even have a penny anymore. Did you consider this?
Disclaimer: I'm from an affected area (but all good now except for cable/internet).
Why should they do more? They already open source a lot of their software (https://github.com/photo) and they are giving free lifetime accounts. Should they also send blankets? Or is that not enough, pillows too (Emmanuel Levinas would take your side).
The penny is their verification method (this has issues I will be emailing them about).
Yes they are seeking some publicity for it, but I'd say that's a fair trade (their site has links to a Scoble video and a Techcrunch writeup so this isn't exactly how they are launching).
I'm not a user of their product yet, but since I am in an affected area (and evaluating options for storing baby photos) I might give it a whirl.
> You can evidently afford to give out almost-free accounts, can you do anything better?
Difficult question to answer as a company. As a company we felt a free account was a good start. We are also a startup.
Personally supporting the cause is another story but they're separate.
> Then scan them and throw them on Dropbox. Your service actively costs the victims money, Dropbox does not, so which helps more?
In case you're unfamiliar with the project it's an open source photo platform. We support Dropbox (and Box.com, S3, DreamObjects, CX, etc) as the place your photos get stored.
Dropbox isn't really free, for photo backup anyway. You'll hit your limits pretty quickly.
> These are people who are already financially strained by the hurricane. They may not even have a penny anymore. Did you consider this?
I have not. But it's a valid point. The subsequent penny each year could be avoided but we're doing it to verify that the person does live in an affected area. I appreciate you bringing this up and we'll see what options we have.
Apparently our database of zip codes isn't big enough though and we're adding them as they arrive.
I am kinda annoyed people here are complaining about something that is obviously sincere attempt to help people. And seriously - accusing them of trying to make money by the .1 cent charge is a little crazy. The lifetime cost of supporting these users plus hosting far outweighs this.
Also the argument that its a token effort that doesn't really practically help people can also be applied your downer comment. Complaining about this offer isn't helping the victims either.
Having browsed both the linked page and the main page, I'm still fuzzy on what this service does. Even if it's free, why do I want to deal with yet another photo-sharing account? I could use flickr or iCloud to back up my photos for free and make them shareable - they have limited size by default but I can pay more if I need more. I think DropBox has a photo syncing feature too, though I don't use it. If people sign up for your service, what value do they get from it? Do they still have to pay for extra storage from DropBox or whatever backend you're using as a separate transaction, or are you paying for storage? How does using you plus my dropbox account guarantee that I "never lose a photo" given that (a) my dropbox account doesn't have room for all my photos (b) dropbox might go away at some point just as flickr might - or I might miss a payment.
By decoupling the application from the photo storage you essentially increase the options you have for keeping your photos for a longer time.
If Yahoo! shuts down Flickr you have to figure out what to do. Download a zip file of a few thousand photos? Then what? Upload them somewhere else?
Our approach is multi-fold (hence us working on the messaging).
If Dropbox shuts down or increases their price or you find someone else you like better then you can use our tools to migrate your photos from Dropbox to BetterDropbox while retaining albums, tags, comments, etc. Your mobile apps will continue to work how they always have. it's 100% transparent for you.
If we shut down you can still have the same benefits. Everything we've done has always been open source[1]. That important because anyone can take the torch and run with it. Not so if Flickr dies.
So as far as we can tell, this is the most effective way (yet) to ensure you don't lose your photos in the long run.
My photos are initially and primarily on my Mac, then I upload selected albums (that I expect/intend to share) to flickr. And also synchronize a substantial fraction of them to my iDevices. If flickr gets shut down then yes, I'd expect I have to upload them somewhere else...which I can do from my Mac.
It sounds like your target audience is people who don't ever put their photos in one central location under their control (say, an iPhoto library), don't back up that location, and care a lot about preserving not just their photos but the online comments received on those photos?
When you say "Your mobile apps will continue to work how they always have. it's 100% transparent for you" - Um, what problem is it that you're solving here? What sort of "mobile apps" are you expecting would fail when dropbox or flickr shuts down?
> It sounds like your target audience is people who don't ever put their photos in one central location under their control (say, an iPhoto library), don't back up that location, and care a lot about preserving not just their photos but the online comments received on those photos?
I believe it's an OR, not an AND. If you don't have one spot where you keep all your photos then we help you do that. Not sure if you're married or not but my wife's photos are not on my Mac and not in my iPhoto.
> Um, what problem is it that you're solving here? What sort of "mobile apps" are you expecting would fail when dropbox or flickr shuts down?
Hey, man -- I'm not going to shit on you for advertising. But I am curious why my zip code, 06840, is not in the list of affected zip codes. We were fucking whalloped. We're in CT, right next to Norwalk (listed), Darien (listed), and Stamford (listed).
No worries. We got our list from one of the .gov sites but realize it's not comprehensive. I've added your zip code and updated the site to let others know to contact us of they find more missing.
We're not a company of Mother Theresa's :). But we're also not your typical startup. Everything we've done has always been open sourced[1] (not just select libraries).
The motivation was that it seemed to be a good fit. Hopefully we get a lot of users taking us up on the offer and hopefully we get some paying users as well.
This is part of an exercise in seeing how we could effect change for the overall good of society. Sounds altruistic, sure. But we're funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, not a bunch of VCs looking to make a buck[2].
Not sure if you read the post but it does mention that a free account on a website isn't much but it's better than something. It's a tragic situation but the post hopefully kept the magnitude of the situation in mind.
Edit: Also pretty sure this is a little to late for victims of hurricane sandy who lost thier computers.