Thanks a whole metric boat load Dave, founder and CEO of OpenDNS, a forward resolving (among other things) DNS service.  Thanks for, before founding OpenDNS, stating up with EveryDNS, a wonderful service that let the geeks of the world host and control our own DNS records for our domain names without having to stand up a primary DNS server of our own.  I have used EveryDNS for many years now, pretty much since the beginning of their existence, and it is hands down the best service, the best management interface (created by David and his partner) and all around DNS Swiss Army knife I have ever seen.  And having been doing IT stuff for over 20 years, I have seen quite a lot.  I have seen big companies try and create tools that do what EveryDNS does and fail miserably.  In the end it might even work, but it’s not near as robust and most importantly, they can’t get the user interface down like the EveryDNS team did.

All in all, EveryDNS was in a class by itself, the best of the best.  What’s all this was stuff you ask?  Well, here is where I get to the main part of my open letter to Dave.  You see, EveryDNS was a free service, although I would gladly have paid for it.  In fact, I did to some degree.  They accepted donations so that people could show some love, and on many occasions I donated so I could show appreciation and not feel like a leech.  I am sure there are folk that didn’t donate, just as there are file sharing morons that despite the majority, never go buy a damn record.  But, it’s not the money I care about, nuh uh.  What has me ticked off is the way that David and company just dumped all their users like last weeks spoiled sushi.  They sold out to DynDNS and I can only hope they made some money on the deal.  I am sure there is some news about how much cabbage changed hands but again I don’t really care about that.

What I care about, and what I am ticked off about, is trust.  I trusted these guys with my domains, something very important to me.  And over the years, I was treated very well by them, like I said the service was great.  Then one day, boom, we are shuffled off to another company that can only see dollar signs in their eyes, being forced to “migrate” to an inferior product, and being extorted along the way.  Yeah, I know, I can always go find another service provider, and I plan to.  But this just isn’t how I think customers (free service or not) should be treated.  Lots of promises were made at the time of the acquisition announcement by both sides of the fence, EveryDNS and DynDNS, and it looks like we the users are going to get shafted on all fronts.

At the end of the day I guess it doesn’t matter, I will find another provider or run my own servers like I used to, and Dave will count his money and play with his OpenDNS project until he tires of that one and shakes off those poor hangers on too.  Just another tidbit of proof that if something is too good to be true, it most certainly is.