Open source business model turning into a liabilit
forums where our support staff happily answer questions throughout the day free of charge. The problem we have started to see is that people will download our free product, then also demand free chat/telephone support to help them install and set it up. When we politely redirect these requests to our forums, or paid support options, our staff are often being verbally assaulted and accused of carrying out some sort of scam among other expletives. In addition to that we are noticing an increased number of negative reviews on the download/review sites claiming that we don't offer support for our product, which has started to have a direct affect on our bottom line. While our overall paying customer satisifaction level is extremely high, its gotten to the point where we are considering abondoning the free product altogether as it seems to be doing more harm than good. Have other similar companies experienced this issue? What would be a better way to handle support for a free product that is still economically viable?"