Joyent ending “Lifetime” hosting accounts →
From an email Joyent sent to customers who had purchased “lifetime” hosting accounts:
“As this service is one of our earliest offerings, and has now run its course, your lifetime service will end on October 31, 2012.”
The $499 “Mixed Grill” account was sold in 2005 and promised to last “as long as we exist.”
Joyent continues to exist and raised $85 million in January.
Anyone who bought this should be annoyed, but buyers should also blame themselves for casting insufficient skepticism on the deal in the first place. Nothing in this business is ever truly “unlimited”, and “lifetime” never means your lifetime.
(Watts Martin has more on the history of these plans.)