Fuck that non-sense of pricing based on what ever they think they can scam me out of
However, the lack of up-front pricing data isn't being used to justify "I won't do business with you." It's justifying "I'm going to take all your stuff anyway."
A conversation I've had a few times:
"We need it to do $THING_IT_WON'T_DO."
"In that case, it probably isn't a great fit for your needs."
"You don't understand. I won't buy it if it doesn't do that."
"I think I do understand. That's fine. You might consider trying $COMPETITOR, although you should know their minimum spend is $1,000 a month."
"That's outrageous. You have a $29 plan."
"Yes. So you should go with the competitor if that requirement is worth $971 a month to you."
"No, I want to spend $29, but I absolutely need that."
"I understand where you're coming from, but we do not offer that feature, and if we did, we would charge prices close to what our competitor does for it."
"You're not working with me here."
"I'm trying to find a resolution which works for you, but including that feature at $29 doesn't make business sense for me, so I won't do it."
"Put me on the phone with your boss."
"I'm afraid that isn't possible, as I sort of run things around here."
"What sort of businessman turns customers away."
"You're not a customer. If you were, you would be purchasing a product I sell for the amount I sell it for. That isn't happening. That's fine. Have a nice day."
I'm saying rather this argument won't find much favour here unless everybody is a hypocrite.
The fact is, if it's harder to buy something, would-be buyers choose another route.
Imagine something of trivial value that was very arduous to obtain. Say, the scores to last weekend's football game are only available via sending the NFL 2 cents taped onto a postcard then getting a user account and password back in the mail. Yes, you could apply for an account and who cares about the 2 cents? But most people wouldn't and who could blame them? There'd certainly be a market for pirated 'score data'.
But, if you just put ads on your site (the NFL does), voila! You make the same amount of money and people are happy to use your service. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes Store and Spotify all get this. If you make it a pain to do something, you can't feign surprise when everyone goes around you.
Is it legal to circumvent something just because it's arduous? No. Is it ethical? Not completely, but downloading pirated football scores wouldn't keep me from running for office.
McAfee were just being the usual assholes, but the first guy mentioned in the blog post could have been converted into a paying customer if the pricing scheme were clearly outlined on the web. Since "Contact us" account tiers are usually reserved for the very high end, he probably assumed that it would cost him an arm and a leg.
It shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a handful of moderately priced account tiers, each targeting a different type of customer, as well as an open-ended tier at the end ("Contact us") for those with special needs and deep pockets.
I understand the sales psychology in making sure you enter into a proper discussion with people to make sure their needs are right, and extracting the maximum consumer surplus from them. But there is a non-trivial pricing point where this makes sense, and by not having any anonymous-sign up, you're cutting off your sales curve below this point.
I think it's very easy to convince yourself it's easier just to sign up customers over the phone, but doing so without at least testing takeup of simpler tiers is an incomplete picture.
In most cases I don't believe these services are forcing customers to talk on the phone because they think they will convert them. Chances are that sign up isn't as easy as a 1-2-click, and involved set up and understanding of the customers needs is required before services can be rendered.
If your signup process can be automated and you only charge $25/mo, and you still tell people to give you a call, then you will lose business because 1) the friction of a phone call is worth more than the difference between your offer and a competing offer; 2) it's impossible to tell whether your offer is worth the friction in the first place, because your pricing is unknown; and 3) people just assume that you'll charge $2500/mo because that's the usual price point where people say "contact us". If someone else comes along and offers an inferior product for $35/mo, they'll get all the business because monkey psychology.
What I am saying along with that is that - by doing this - you're ignoring a lot of the market at (or even just below) your price point. That might be OK - as long as it is a conscious decision to do so, including acknowledging that your market is completely above that point.
In the case being discussed here, it would seem that there is an interest below this price point.