Ask Paul: January 11 (Premium)

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask Paul. This week, I look at a problematic forum post and revisit a previous question too.

So before getting to this week’s questions, I will address those other two other topics first.
About that forum post
As you may have seen, a reader announced that he was canceling his Thurrott Premium subscription because the third of the three recent Microsoft giveaways---for Surface Go and Surface Headphones---is only available to those in the US and Canada. The reason you may have seen this is that he created a forum thread so others could pile on and add to his complaint.

That several readers defended me instead was appreciated. But I decided to delete the forum thread for a number of reasons, including an unwarranted personal attack. I did explain why the Microsoft hardware giveways had to be US (and Canada) only on First Ring Daily on yesterday’s episode of First Ring Daily. So I’ll summarize here.

First of all, both Mary Jo and Leo quickly wiped their hands of this kind giveaway when Chris offered it privately, leaving me as the only option. I did this knowing that it would be a lot of work, especially when it came to the hardware. I will have to box up, label, and bring the devices to the Post Office, etc. And then I will be on the front line for support when they don’t arrive, arrive late, or arrive damaged.

But it’s worse than that. Shipping hardware internationally is expensive and unreliable. Having done this multiple times, I have many stories about devices that never show up, and just get lost out in the world. Most recently, the car key that we sent to Sweden in July for our annual home swap never arrived, despite being mailed weeks early (we got it back in October or November). And when Google sent Mehedi review hardware (to London), it got held up in customs and I had to pay a fee of about £150 so Mehedi could even get them.

Also, this was a Windows Weekly giveaway that has nothing to do with Thurrott Premium. And I communicated that it would be US-only (later adding Canada) right up front and repeated this each time I posted an update about the giveaways. My reminder on this past week’s Windows Weekly that the giveaways would be US and Canada only was just that, a reminder. Not a last minute “screw you.”

I receive no personal gain for doing this giveaway. In fact, I signed a document for Microsoft that explains I’m aware of the tax implications of this giveaway. And that can be substantial since the total value of the giveaways is about $6000.

Finally, I never engaged with work to even see if this was OK to do. I will be paying for shipping out of pocket, and will ask work to pay me back via expenses. But paying for international shipping would have been too much to ask.

So I was just trying to be nice, help Microsoft do something nice for viewers. And now it’s just a shit show. Which, granted, was easily predicted. I did it anyway. My reward for this,...