> The other half, however, are less pleasant to read and mostly contain a colorful mixture of swear words, conveying the basic message that they’d rather not be contacted in the future.

The fact that a full half of the people who bothered to respond were so offended by your actions that they took the time to swear at you might be a clue that spamming your customers is not a good way to generate positive feedback.

I recently bought tickets from Ticketmaster and stupidly gave them my real email address instead of my spam email, thinking perhaps they would send something I would need to get my tickets. I think I had to unsubscribe from five separate lists to get them to stop sending me garbage.

> I wish that they’d just click the “Unsubscribe” link in the email, since that’s what it’s there for after all

Tell you what, every day you send a spam bomb, spend 2 minutes staring at the wall for each and every person that clicks the Unsubscribe link. Then you'll have some understanding of how much time you are wasting for your potential (now probably ex-) customers. I mean, that's what the wall is there for after all.

In short, fuck spammers.

This guy likely overestimates how important his app is. Usually, I don't want to have a conversation when I try something out. Now he's gone and sent me a huge email expecting me to read it right after I tell him to stop sending me stuff.

I'd be annoyed. I wouldn't respond harshly, but I'd be annoyed.

It probably works to 'convert' people, though, so more power to them.

> "please stop emailing me. I do not use the tool" ... the only apology for rudeness our support team has ever seen ...

"Please stop emailing me" is "rudeness"?

Seriously, is this for real?

You know what's unkind? Sending people unwanted email. All email lists that aren't opt-in are evil. Period. While I agree with the conclusion, the first half of this article "it pays to be kind because then you'll get sympathy from spammers" isn't exactly a great argument for it.

In my first startup in the mid-80's there was no email support obviously; it was all phone. We made it a point to always invite anyone who complained to help us beta test the next version so we could incorporate their suggestions. It usually took people who were unhappy and made them champions of the product.

There's a lot of assholes out there, and nothing feels better than killing them with kindness. Does that make me an asshole too?

I wonder if many of the recent contoversies could have been avoided if all the parties involved had followed this advice. The ability to forgive someone's mistakes immediately is a very valuable trait. The ability to quickly recognize your own mistakes is even more powerful.

Article reminded me of the quote:

"Experience is something that we get right after we needed it most"

People can experience all kinds of things, acts of kindness, cruelty, logic, and compassion are some of them. As you gain experience your world begins to be colored by it. In that vein cruel person will see cruelty in others and seek violent solutions first because in his experience that is what works.

Of course nothing is absolute, thus above should not be taken out of context of random philosophical musing.

Interesting perspective on kindness. Worth a read!

just out of curiosity, what app are we talking about?