here’s a fun story of demolishing customer loyalty due to tech debt I’ve bought a lot of @Blackmagic_News gear. most recently I bought DaVinci Resolve + a Speed Editor the box it comes in has lots of little postcards & marketing materials, which I throw out. big mistake

one of the postcards had my DaVinci Resolve activation key sure, I *should* have read everything carefully, but I didn’t. I screwed up & tossed out the activation key with all the packaging & marketing collateral but I’ve got receipts! they can retrieve or roll the key, right?

lol, no apparently @Blackmagic_News has no way of monitoring activation keys. they can’t tell if it’s been used instead, they ask you to send a photo of the device serial number with a handwritten note of today’s date and the ticket number. like a Reddit verification I do this

but apparently there are two serial numbers. one on the speed editor (which I have) and one printed on one of the packaging items (which I threw away) so I've sent my proof-of-life photo, sent my receipt (from a week and a half ago), & asked how we can recover the key I lost

the @Blackmagic_News response? “not our problem” cool just about every software tool I’ve purchased links my activation key to my email + has recovery options Blackmagic doesn’t. you just have to pay twice, I guess

rather than keeping me as an enthusiastic customer, Blackmagic chose to push me away because they have tech debt around managing keys whatever, I guess. bummed to watch a company fumble customer service this hard when so many options exist that aren’t customer-hostile

okay, surprise twist! the support person hit me up a day later and said they talked to their boss on my behalf. they sent me my activation key! this was a very pleasant turn of events and I’m back in the Blackmagic fan camp (though I’d still love to see more modern key mgmt)