Re: NO multiple logins !! Livingston won't listen (fwd)
Owen DeLong (owen@delong.sj.ca.us)
Wed, 26 Jun 1996 12:43:09 -0700 (PDT)
> > Thus spake MegaZone
> > >So billl them for sharing. Case closed.
> >
> > Point 1) Many ISP's have policies in place already and changing
> > acceptable use and billing policies almost *never* makes customers happy
> > and usually pisses many off. This is not something that we like to do.
> > In this case, we aren't having a major problem with this, but the
> > administrative solutions to this sometimes are not nearly as workable as
> > you engineer people seem to think. It would take some *major* hacking
> > to our billing system to bill people for duplicate logins, and we'd much
> > rather just prevent them in the first place (like I said, its not a
> > major problem for us...right now).
>
> Translation: we'd rather you do the programming
>
Alternate translation: It's easy to solve in a site-specific manner, and very
hard to solve in a portable generic manner. We think you will be
happier with your own site-specific solution and you can have that
alot sooner.
> :)
>
> I think I'll go with the billing option.
>
Good idea.
> > you seen all the advertisements for $19.95 (or less) flat rate? If we
> > sell a flat rate account at $19.95 (as most other ISP's are doing these
> > days) and then start billing for a duplicate login, users are going to
> > cry foul and split for another provider, cause if you do that, then its
> > really not flat rate, now is it?
>
> Hmm, interesting problem. I think you believe the following:
>
> * If customers get "login refused" when they log in multiple times they will
> not switch ISPs.
>
> * If customers get billed for multiple logins, they will switch ISPs.
>
> I'm not sure that's the case, but then, i'm not one of the customers.
>
I'm inclined to agree with you. I think customers will bail when they
get "login refused" more likely than when they get a bill for logging
on more than once. As long as you define "flat rate" accurately in
your contract, I doubt most users will complain.
Owen