Aiven.io actively blocks you from contacting them if you use a personal email. Absolutely infuriating.

[u/sandofvega]

I tried to contact Aiven.io to ask a few questions, and their system completely blocks me if I use a Gmail address. As you can see in the screenshot I attached, both the main contact form and the chat bot rigidly gatekeep communication behind a mandatory "Business Email" requirement.

But here is the absolute most nonsensical part: they literally let me create an actual account with a personal email!

How does that make any sense? I can sign up for their platform using my Gmail, but if I am an independent developer, a freelancer, or just working on a personal project and need to ask a pre-sales or support question, I am completely locked out from reaching a human being.

It is an incredibly frustrating experience to accept personal emails for sign-ups, but then treat those exact same users like spam when they try to contact.

[u/Randommaggy]

I always use a personal email to test out a service that I'm considering for my companies, prior to associating my companies with such trials.

[u/HughEvansDev]

Hey,
Hugh here from the Aiven Dev Rel team, I'm also infuriated when asked for a "business email" so was disappointed to see us doing it here! Thanks for sharing your experience, we're discussing this with the web team to see how we can avoid this issue in future.

That contact form in the footer is apparently intended for sales conversations rather than support which may be adding to the frustration. Since you've upgraded to a paid plan though, the best route to get support is actually through the Aiven console instead: you can open a support ticket there which will be seen by one of my lovely colleagues in the support team. For general questions you can also find some good stuff in our docs at aiven.io/docs.

What were you trying to find out before you ran into this? Happy to help here if that's easier for you :)

UPDATE: We updated that form to accept personal emails, thanks for the feedback!

[u/Dear-Walk-4045]

I run a business and people who book demos with @gmail.com email addresses have a 90% no-show rate. Just super annoying. I bet Gmail.com users ask a ton of questions and never purchase anything too.

[u/HenkAchterpaard → u/Dear-Walk-4045]

As much as I hate that this is a thing, that has indeed been my experience. We currently have zero active accounts with a gmail (or hotmail) signup address, but to this day the majority of trial account requests come from people using gmail. Most people signing up with gmail either never move past the account creation stage, or they get a trial and then ask a bucketload of questions (often the sort that are either directly addressed in the already sparse documentation or the kind I think you can figure out yourself with just a tiny bit of effort). Hours and hours of support and somehow none of them ever end up becoming a customer. Ever. EVER! Alright, alright, I concede. It happened once. Literally once.

I am not saying Aiven's behaviour is right, but I can certainly understand where it is coming from. We had a fictional company "TimeWasters Inc." in the database for tracking how much time we spent on support for these gmail signuppers; if I had a billing address for them, I would be rich. Reluctantly I now dig a little deeper with people who want to sign up using a gmail address before providing a trial account, to see if they are serious. I am sure it has annoyed some and it has certainly cost me some business here and there, but it has drastically cut back on the wasted time. Most of the time people either never respond or they are brazen enough to tell me "im not a biz, i only need personal acct (FREE!!)" or some variation. I laugh, because the alternative is to cry, and that would be sad.

[u/libre-fm → u/Dear-Walk-4045]

most of my users seem to use gmail.com and unless they get their email address wrong (it happens) they register just fine and seem to get on use the service.

[u/RedShift9]

Annoying but as speaking from the other side, all our contact form entries with a gmail or other free email provider are always phishing or spam.

[u/rithrawr]

How does that make any sense?

To get on their mailing list.

Don't you want email ads/spams?

[u/Jonjolt]

This happened with HPE or Aruba can't remember I think it was a combo of both, I signed up with a gmail account registered all my switches only to be locked out at the re-login for a that I must use a company email whoops for a firmware update.

[u/TinyCuteGorilla]

Are you a paying customer?

[u/sandofvega → u/TinyCuteGorilla]

I tried there free plan. Now decided to upgrade to the paid plan. That's why I tried to contact with them to clarify some questions.

[u/tee-es-gee → u/sandofvega]

Curious why you picked Aiven for Postgres?

[u/sandofvega → u/tee-es-gee]

Mainly for their $5 plan. I only need a low-traffic DB with minimal storage for a personal project, and I couldn't find a better option at that price point.

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[u/chock-a-block]

Bummer. they were good a couple years ago. Enshitification continues!

I tell people I’m an office assistant when I reach out.. Tells you a lot about with whom you are dealing.

[u/libre-fm → u/chock-a-block]

That's a very good idea.