The exchanges all read like Vlad derives a lot of self-esteem from being right, which isn't as good as deriving it from ability to learn when wrong.
But, Vlad definitely should have stopped when Lori responded that they didn’t want to have a conversation at all. If for no other reason than they were a lost cause.
The customer isn't always right, but often is, like in this case. If you're a CEO, best to just pipe down, be humble, and listen to customers. Being open to being wrong is a nice plus, but either way, people will like you more if you appear to listen instead of argue. Even when you're right!
tl;dr: this isn't an internet argument between two otherwise-equal random strangers, this is a CEO talking down to a customer while being objectively wrong, which is 2x bad.
Instead of actually educating himself, he just argues that he's not wrong. I could easily see Lori being sick of the frustration of having to deal with that and just say "ok, nope, this conversation is done".
> They just put the company on blast and aren’t willing to even hear the other side of things.
I don't think that's what actually happened?
Put more simply: it takes a weird, broken logic to find fault in the idea that a person who won't stop emailing you, after being told to, isn't "combative".
The email Lori sends explicitly asking him to stop emailing is then followed up with some last-wordism "for the record" nonsense. Only on the extremely online internet do people consider someone the aggrieved party after they write a screed against a product or business, then close the conversation with representatives of that business with essentially a don't @ me and some last-wordism. It's terrible journalistic practice. It's a net negative in social and community engagement. I don't see why doing it over online spaces gives the author a pass here.
If the founder wants to respond they can write a respectful blog post and put it on the fucking homepage. They don't have a right to harangue the author via email.
And why is that, exactly? They do have this “right” and they exercise it.
Or if that's the words that would've been chosen - I would agree to you.
But if you mix those words with extra message, then no. A reply to this new message is warranted.
E.g. if you add a reason and that reason is unreasonable - it's warranted to address that and reply to you. Either do a request without attached strings, or block. Don't write extra conditions/reasoning and then complain that someone doesn't agree with you on those and kept messaging.
Lori's emails are deliberately designed to goad Vlad into replying, just to act indignant when he does.
This is not goading, this is telling someone to fuck off into the sun. If he wants to respond he can respond on his product with a blog post. His audience already dwarfs hers anyways, he Streisand-effect'ed himself because he's clearly got some narcissism issues.