Well, I guess I should take a whack at this. As someone who runs a service business and also one who wants to see my client succeed, I add the following;
It seems that some people are personalizing this. No finger pointing, but some of the posts to appear to come from a personal point of view, and/or heavily quilted with business savvy.
Let me give you a real story, which does relate well to this situation. Last year I was faced with having to offer DSL service or face certain extinction. With little knowledge of how it may effect my overall business, I opted to offer it at a higher price than most of my competitors.
1) The higher price would allow a slower growth and give me time to make sure I had all things lined up correctly.
2) It would ensure I would not oversell the service, which is important to me.
After 4 to 5 months, I discovered the DSL clients really were not taxing the overall service.
At that point in time, I could then afford to lower the price, but only if I knew it would garner more business. It was a fine line to be walking.
As calls for DSL service came in, we were telling the new prospects a price which was well under what my current client base was paying.
This went on for another 3 months. After that I determined we could lower the price across the board and still be profitable.
We did so. No announcements, we just changed all of our current clients price to the new lower price.
They were very happy.
Now, those old clients of mine, paying that higher price were mostly converted accounts from dial-up and had been with me for years. Now had those clients found out I was charging a lower price to others for the same service, they probably would have gotten angry about it.
Did I screw those clients? No. I gave them the same price as soon as I could.
My only other option would have been to start at the low price, and hope like hell the client base built quickly, so I could stay in business. As it was, the clients that paid more got quality service and when I could afford it, they got the lower price as well.
The only difference here, is that it became public knowledge before the process had time to work.
Do you feel your $30/month has gotten you quality service? If yes, then you should applaud HTC's effort to find out if the timing is right for a lower price.
You paying $30/month are not second class, you are not being screwed, you are, in fact the reason HTC may be able to get to a lower price point, and the reason they have been able to offer quality service since day one.
If you answer no to the above question, then you should not be here anyways.
Strictly from a business point of view, I find no flaw in what they are trying to accomplish or in the manner they approaching it. The only flaw, is the fact that it came to light too soon. Had no one known about it, nothing would have changed. Those of you who are quitting, would still be flying and happy about it.
This is why I think some of you have personalized this.
Oh, and many of you are making some rather gross assumptions about the target demographic. No one from HTC has stated what that demographic was, and it is none of our business.
Anyways,...just doing my part to get this thread to 200.
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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.netskuzzy@applink.net
