Goes to show that even if there are a lot of competitors in a product space you can still do well simply by giving a shit.
The sad thing is that it's probably inevitable that someday an MBA will decide to burn that goodwill for some quick cash. Maybe not for a long time, but eventually it will happen. That's the society we've built and live in.
Can you elaborate what happened in the Opera era or are you under an NDA?
Fastmail is bootstrapped and profitable. They aren't beholden to outside investors trying to 10x their money. Fastmail also just doesn't have that sort of culture. (Source: I have friends there). They aren't looking to be a unicorn. They seem very happy to have a profitable business that they can nurture for decades.
Culturally, they're growing a garden, not launching a rocket ship.
Eventually the company will change hands. Knowing some of the people involved, I trust that when that happens, they'll find good stewards.
They pick up the phone and answer your questions.
They don't have you wait in a queue for 45min and affirm that your call is important to them.
They don't give new customers better prices than loyal ones.
If they update local bandwidth, you get that for the same price you paid before, without asking.
That's it.
I gladly pay less than $20 a month extra for all this peace of mind.