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Comment by justsomehnguy | Hacker News Reader

One^W two things what makes self-hosting a bit more attractive:

a) besides the some bootstrapping nuances you are not forced to have a working phone number to be able to use some resource. It's usually not a problem until... well until it became a problem. Just like for me yesterday when for whatever I tried but I couldn't register a new Google account. There is just no other option than SMS confirmation.

b) there is way less things to change 'for your own convenience', like a quiet removal of any option to pre-pay for Fastmail.

PS oh and Dynadot (which I was happy using for more than 10 years) decided (for my convenience, of course) to change the security mechanism they used for years. Of course I don't remember the answer for the security question and now I forced to never ever migrate from them, because I literally can't.

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> quiet removal of any option to pre-pay for Fastmail

Eh?

I just purchased a new 12 month Fastmail plan for my business with no issue a few weeks ago.

Up to 36 months is still listed on their pricing page...

Refer to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41242945

For years I just uploaded a lump sum and it was spent as I used the service per year. This way I didn't need to bother what I would be without email when the paid period is over and I didn't need to overpay much in case I would need to cancel early.

Now I need to be sure I be around with a working CC at the time the bought period is over... and what if won't? Do I need to jump through cancel-and-reorder hoops every couple of years? More importantly, am I sure what a couple years later these hoops would work or through some very unlucky coincidence it would wipe my decade+ emails? Sure, Fastmail guys would be so sorry but... that wouldn't help me.

Okay, I misunderstood what you meant.

That said, I feel like you're asking for something that is fairly non-standard in the industry in general, though I could be wrong; I've never tried to do things that way myself.

If I were fastmail, those tax issues they mention would definitely take precedence over other issues in any event. Writing your own sales tax/VAT/whatever software strikes me as a special kind of hell given all the tax laws that have to be supported (and kept updated!) for every different jurisdiction out there.

For me, being able to pay three years in advance and only have to renew once every three years is fine, and they did offer a workaround for you, but to each their own I suppose.

> non-standard in the industry in general

Except Fastmail had it for years, every hoster on WHMCS has it always as it's built-in. AWS is piloting it for a small subset of American-only customers. Every domain registrar is having an option to add a prepay, because this is the way how this business works.

> those tax issues they mention would definitely take precedence over other issues in any event

Sure, but we are back to the point I made in a first place.

> once every three years is fine

For me too (though I prefer two years), but I definitely don't want to make a bizarre dances because 3rd party billing which praise itself as a solution for SaaS and digital doesn't have a basic thing what was a thing for decades. I've seen enough of shit happen (even at Fastmail) what would make me extremely 'dance-averse'.

And again 'we made this change for your convenience' - except it's no longer convenient for me. And thanks, I can do the very hard math problem of multiplying the cost to the current exchange rate.

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