Hi Mark,

Thank you for a brilliant piece. It's perfectly analogised and even better, summarised!

I didn't know the "terms" but I was impressed that in the months that I received pre-joiner emails from WAU, I never received one offering a discount, no "special rate, exclusively for you", "hurry, only a few days left", etc.

The only "upselling" and "cross selling" I've experienced at WAU has been Namecheap, Street Articles and Jaaxy. I'm delighted that the first will be taken care of in the coming weeks with the release of free sub-domains. I stupidly purchased 20+ perfectly ill informed domains including .info's (!) on my first day here, so I'm relieved that no fellow noob will ever again fall prey to that mistake.

Street Articles is forgivable as it's free and the last one I guess just can't be helped.

Jaaxy is definitely an "upsell". It's a spawn-of-satan service that snares the unwary and ends with hopeless addicts like Kyle and Carson pushing it to swell the ranks and keep us all forever glued to our screens. Bit like World of Warcraft. I know they designed and built it themselves but I believe they've sadly ended up like all the other innocent subscribers, completely enslaved to the system.

I've a total downer on "downselling". I subscribed for years to a brilliant service at $39.99 a month. I was livid when I accidentally let my subscription lapse due to my credit card expiring and received an email offering me a $19.99 re-joiners rate.

Don't get me wrong, that service was worth $39.99 to me and I got value for money, I just felt like such a complete mug knowing that I could have saved $$$ if I'd resigned and come back after the first month.

I'll be applying your words-of-wisdom from now on to any purchase I make, whether online or in the real world. I'll look beyond the shiny objects and dancing girls and ask myself, "what's the up-sell, down-sell or cross-sell?" before I part with a penny.

Thanks again.

Best.

Rich.