Reality is this will lose them paying subscribers, so without a doubt this is an expensive mistake regardless of who’s to blame. Large subscription businesses are very careful about when to email the segment of their subscriber base that is paying but inactive. This email just reminded a bunch of people they are paying for something but not using it, and therefore should cancel (granted, it’s unclear who it went out to).

It could cause some ESP/deliverabilty problems too.

On the bright side, this can serve as a reminder to us all to make sure this doesn’t happen at our companies.