[pingburg]

I've respected the HN community for a long time. This was a place where ideas could be shared and unlike many sites that were just an echo-chamber for a particular point of view, things were debated here on a much higher, respectful level. Lately, however, if you don't 'fit' a particular worldview, comments are down voted instead of being debated.

Case in point. Here a company has provided insight into why they don't believe their product fits with the freemium model. This is so against dogma and current ideology that it's being down voted not on its merits but on the audacity to have a different opinion.

[evgen]

I think they are mostly being downvoted because they are apparently real dicks. This "I made a mistake so there is obviously a problem with you" attitude they display here and in the post in question shows a level of immaturity that puts them in the running for d-bag company of the year.

[liamgooding]

Seems a harsh, unfair and hasty assessment considering you've never met anyone in our team or spoken to any of our users.... :-/

[mbrameld]

You control the public's perception of your company. You chose to write this post and put it out there, but you feel it's unfair for people to judge your company based on what you've written? That seems a little naive.

[watwut]

I think that problem is not removing free option. The problem is attitude to those free users. There was no reason to call them "freeloaders".

Saying "free plan turned out to be bad business decision, we can not really keep it" is one thing. Calling someone freeloader is another.