Since I have a Crosswinds account that I no longer use but have been unable to get rid of, and I noticed that free sites are no longer available, I logged into my old account and found this announcement:
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The End of Crosswinds Free Service - Update May 1, 2003
This announcement is the hardest one that I have had to make in all the years I have been with Crosswinds, but it is necessary to keep Crosswinds as your trusted hosting company of choice. I was one of the founders of Crosswinds in the heyday of the Web explosion and have spent many long hours of the past 6 years of my life working on every aspect of this service. With the changes in the Internet and the expectations of a quality service, we have had to make a very big change.
As of May 15th, the free service will be discontinued.
The reason for this decision is simple and I will explain it to you so that you can understand.
Crosswinds currently has 2 million members. Before 2000, Crosswinds was fairly successful in surviving off of advertising revenues, but it was tough due to the decision to have unencumbered service. With the decline of advertising revenue and increase in abuse of our service, we began to institute changes in an effort to cope and continue to exist.
Popups were added to boost revenue and the option to pay to have them removed was added. Then Premium and Email Pro was added and features added to them (and removed from free) to reduce abuse and try to survive.
It has been a very tough time. I have repeatedly heard from users that we must be living well due to all the money we make. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the revenue that we receive is reinvested back into Crosswinds to maintain and improve our service to you.
Crosswinds is not a hobby and cannot be. The email support alone requires a team of people. Fixing and upgrading services of this scale requires paid professionals.
Over the past 6 years, the people employed at Crosswinds have received only a fraction of the salaries that they were accustomed to getting.
Most of the income we currently receive is from Premium and Email Pro subscriptions and domain names. In return, these people receive a fuller featured service. These people have put their belief and money into the Crosswinds service and have enabled us to keep the free service going. Free members outnumber the paying members by 100 to 1.
It is this overwhelming ratio that places the strain on Crosswinds.
This cannot continue. We have a right to receive fair (not excessive) compensation for the work that we do - just like anyone else. Paying members have the right to the service that they pay for. The stress placed on us every day to pay our rents, bills and buy food is enormous.
One thing we have known is, if we had received only $1 for every person that had signed up, we would have no problems at all.
Here are the options:
You can choose to pay a yearly fee of $11 to maintain your basic account. That is less than $1/month! If you decide to upgrade to one of the other paid packages, your $11 will be applied to the upgrade and the setup fee will not be charged since you already have decided to support Crosswinds.
$11 is a very small price for the service that you have been receiving and yes, it is ALL that is needed to provide you this service!
You can GO HERE to pay this fee.
If you choose to upgrade to one of our Paid Services, we thank you for the support of the Premium Service! We have a ton of new services ready to roll out for you!
You can GO HERE to upgrade.
If you opt not to take either of the options, your account will be terminated and all files/email removed on May 16th, 2003.
If you choose the Basic rate or upgrade to the Premium Power Pack before May 8th, 2003 you'll be entered into a draw for one of 10 Limited Edition Crosswinds T-Shirts. It reflects the fight, and success, that we have all put forward in continuing to make Crosswinds a great place to have a site.
This decision has taken months to come to. Scott and I founded Crosswinds with free in mind, but the reality of life requires that we make this change.
These changes ensure the future of Crosswinds will be bright and our focus can be on providing a superior service to all our members!
Sincerely,
Tony Holmes
Founder and Senior Systems Architect
Crosswinds Internet Communications Inc.
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Hmmm, I wonder whatever happened to their statement, "We will never yank the free service." Guess that was about as valid as their promise never to put ads on free websites. Oh well, their free service was awful since 2001 anyway, and it's about time they rolled over and died (as a free host)!
I wonder what's next for their paying members - are they going to start jacking up the prices of their pay services and start putting limits on disk space and data transfer? I bet they will. Crosswinds.net - once king of free unmetered webspace, now just another pay host out of the thousands on the web.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End of Crosswinds Free Service - Update May 1, 2003
This announcement is the hardest one that I have had to make in all the years I have been with Crosswinds, but it is necessary to keep Crosswinds as your trusted hosting company of choice. I was one of the founders of Crosswinds in the heyday of the Web explosion and have spent many long hours of the past 6 years of my life working on every aspect of this service. With the changes in the Internet and the expectations of a quality service, we have had to make a very big change.
As of May 15th, the free service will be discontinued.
The reason for this decision is simple and I will explain it to you so that you can understand.
Crosswinds currently has 2 million members. Before 2000, Crosswinds was fairly successful in surviving off of advertising revenues, but it was tough due to the decision to have unencumbered service. With the decline of advertising revenue and increase in abuse of our service, we began to institute changes in an effort to cope and continue to exist.
Popups were added to boost revenue and the option to pay to have them removed was added. Then Premium and Email Pro was added and features added to them (and removed from free) to reduce abuse and try to survive.
It has been a very tough time. I have repeatedly heard from users that we must be living well due to all the money we make. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the revenue that we receive is reinvested back into Crosswinds to maintain and improve our service to you.
Crosswinds is not a hobby and cannot be. The email support alone requires a team of people. Fixing and upgrading services of this scale requires paid professionals.
Over the past 6 years, the people employed at Crosswinds have received only a fraction of the salaries that they were accustomed to getting.
Most of the income we currently receive is from Premium and Email Pro subscriptions and domain names. In return, these people receive a fuller featured service. These people have put their belief and money into the Crosswinds service and have enabled us to keep the free service going. Free members outnumber the paying members by 100 to 1.
It is this overwhelming ratio that places the strain on Crosswinds.
This cannot continue. We have a right to receive fair (not excessive) compensation for the work that we do - just like anyone else. Paying members have the right to the service that they pay for. The stress placed on us every day to pay our rents, bills and buy food is enormous.
One thing we have known is, if we had received only $1 for every person that had signed up, we would have no problems at all.
Here are the options:
You can choose to pay a yearly fee of $11 to maintain your basic account. That is less than $1/month! If you decide to upgrade to one of the other paid packages, your $11 will be applied to the upgrade and the setup fee will not be charged since you already have decided to support Crosswinds.
$11 is a very small price for the service that you have been receiving and yes, it is ALL that is needed to provide you this service!
You can GO HERE to pay this fee.
If you choose to upgrade to one of our Paid Services, we thank you for the support of the Premium Service! We have a ton of new services ready to roll out for you!
You can GO HERE to upgrade.
If you opt not to take either of the options, your account will be terminated and all files/email removed on May 16th, 2003.
If you choose the Basic rate or upgrade to the Premium Power Pack before May 8th, 2003 you'll be entered into a draw for one of 10 Limited Edition Crosswinds T-Shirts. It reflects the fight, and success, that we have all put forward in continuing to make Crosswinds a great place to have a site.
This decision has taken months to come to. Scott and I founded Crosswinds with free in mind, but the reality of life requires that we make this change.
These changes ensure the future of Crosswinds will be bright and our focus can be on providing a superior service to all our members!
Sincerely,
Tony Holmes
Founder and Senior Systems Architect
Crosswinds Internet Communications Inc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hmmm, I wonder whatever happened to their statement, "We will never yank the free service." Guess that was about as valid as their promise never to put ads on free websites. Oh well, their free service was awful since 2001 anyway, and it's about time they rolled over and died (as a free host)!
I wonder what's next for their paying members - are they going to start jacking up the prices of their pay services and start putting limits on disk space and data transfer? I bet they will. Crosswinds.net - once king of free unmetered webspace, now just another pay host out of the thousands on the web.
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