Why I love Panic and Unison

I received a welcome e-mail yesterday, regarding Panic's Unison usenet access, the subscription service I use to replace InsightBB's shallow and unreliable access.

Dear Unison Access User,

We bring you some good news: Unison Access has changed dramatically! How?

  • Improved Retention. We're targeting up to 100 days worth of articles in big groups!
  • Lower Price. Unison Access will now run a mere $9.95 a month.
  • More Transfer. We're now giving you 20 GB of transfer a month, double what you had before.

Happily, the changeover to the new servers is complete, and some of you are already using it as I type. Read on for more details!

And in addition to the good, they also mention the downside of the server transition:

Q: Hey... is there more spam now?

A: Possibly. Our previous servers had a state-of-the-art spam filtering solution that, sadly, our current servers don't yet have. We are working very hard to implement similar technology on the new servers in the near the future -- in fact, one solution is already being tested internally. Thanks for your patience -- we hate spam too.

And on the other side, again:

Q: When does billing start?

A: Because of the potential inconvenience of this switch, the month of April will be free of charge for all subscribers! Billing will resume in May.

Panic has always provided a quality service and the best software. That they would upgrade my service while lowering the price, and give me a free month for my trouble (of which I've had none), comes as almost no surprise to me. This is a great company, and one of the many reasons why the Mac platform is so much nicer than Windows.