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Comment by decremental | Hacker News Reader

Often it's the case that the less a customer is paying, the more indignant they feel they can be with support. I don't know why this is. You get more reasonable customers with higher pricing. I imagine a free tier attracts all sorts of riff raff.

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My guess as to why, is that the kinds of people who are paying the higher tiers are companies. The person(s) interacting with support are on the payroll of the company experiencing problems. So it's all a very professional conversation.

right, I might consider that a large number of the services my employer has paid for are crap, but when I talk to representatives of those services I can't say why in hell did you decide to do this idiotic crap because their HR would complain to my employer's HR and thus I am forced to be polite. Definitely a win for professional etiquette.

I believe, based on other comments I have seen on HN, that my view is a pretty widespread one.

> My guess as to why, is that the kinds of people who are paying the higher tiers are companies.

That may be a partial explanation, but I've also heard this frequently from people who sell to only retail customers.

If you're the low cost plumber, pressure washer, or lawn care, you're going to have a headache compared to the people who operate up market.

Who's gonna complain and argue more over $5, a poor person or a rich person? If you concentrate on the "value" market people will concentrate on getting value out of you. That totally includes rich but cheap people, which are very much a thing.

Seems like a reasonable guess if you assume most or all of the paying customers are companies, but that might be unrealistic to assume, and individual consumer behavior has been studied a lot; it’s widely known in retail business that people often don’t value free things. The relationship between price and product engagement is complicated. Having run a site myself that offered a free tier and a paid tier, I experienced exactly the same thing: free customers were noticeably more demanding and less patient than the paying customers. Initially I sold paid plans almost entirely to individuals, not companies, and still saw this behavior. So my guess is that people who invest financially in their tools are willing to work to improve them, hence interested in having a polite and productive relationship with the company that makes their tools. Free users want the product to work right now, and because they’re not paying, they don’t expect it to change. There might be a bit of free users acting more aggressively out of fear that they won’t be listened to because they’re on the free tier, and hoping that public shaming, instead of money, will get the company to act. At least that what it feels like on the support end of this.

Same happens with ratings. You can have the same app, one paid and one free, the free one will be rated lower because of perception.

If a person pays for a thing they are more invested in making it something worthwhile and thus less attacks.

If something is free and any issue, it suddenly is horrible because they never associated value with it from the beginning.

It is a psychological thing and plays into many parts of the market.

> the free one will be rated lower because of perception.

Not only that. I would buy paid app only if convinced that it is worth it. I am willing to try free app - and in case that it is garbage, rate it accordingly.

Also, free versions often have strong limitation or massive amounts of ads: so they are worse than paid one.

You are missing the major differences between the users and apps being compared.

There’s self selection, if you pay for something then it you’re more selective in what you get. “Free” apps are also worse due to inserting advertising.

I've noticed this is also true in regards to how employers treat employees. Low wage workers are treated like shit, and higher wage workers tend to enjoy more flexibility and benefits. How much someone is willing to pay you for your labor may in fact be a direct measurement of how much they value you as a person.

I think you might have this flipped (not that it's any better). If someone pays you more, they assume you're more valuable and to some extent assume you're a better person.

I think we're in agreement on that point. It may go even further though, and I suspect the act of paying someone poor wages in of itself leads to perceiving them as property.

I think it's that if you're paying someone you usually respect them. There's a trust relationship established.

Also, the "I decided to spend my money on this, it ought to be good, I cannot be wrong" effect.

IMO it comes down to the cost of burning the bridge. The free to $10/mo user likely won't even notice if they get banned from the service. But the company spending $5000/mo on the service will likely have the worst week of their lives if they get banned...

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