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Helium Mobile discontinued their free “Zero” plan for new customers a month ago. Then, a few days ago, existing customers were contacted and told they’d be automatically moved to the $15/mo “Air” plan on June 11th.
When Helium Mobile first started out, they offered a $5/mo and then a $20/mo unlimited plan to early adopters. The company promised those plans were for life at the time, but back in January of this year, the company decided to end those plans. A few months later, and now the Zero plan is thrown out too.
In the email to existing Zero plan customers, Helium Mobile claims that they made the “difficult decision” to end the plan, and that it wasn’t sustainable in the long term.
If you go by what CEO Amir Haleem said recently in the official Helium Discord, it was definitely all about the money.
The users that built Helium Mobile are “parasites”
After the decision to end the free plan, the Helium staff apparently decided opening their Discord server back up at this time was wise, and did so on May 22nd. Prior to that date, it had members, but the server was apparently “read-only”.
Surprisingly, though, the complaint that triggered the CEO’s response was from a user who had been in the Helium Discord since 2021. They simply commented that Helium was throwing their OG members “to the curb” by ending the free plan.
A Helium team member, with the role of “Community Manager”, responded kindly, and all was well at first.
Two hours later, though, CEO Amir Haleem responded by claiming OG users are only still around because they want free stuff. They finished by saying “good riddance”.
The original user then claimed, rightfully so in my opinion, that the OG users are what made Helium Mobile as big as it is today.
This led the CEO to call people who “are only happy when they get things for free”, implying the aforementioned Zero plan users, “parasites”.
Clearly, Helium Mobile’s statement about the free plans not being sustainable is putting it mildly. Still, it’s quite odd to see the CEO of a company that offered a free plan in the first place calling the customers that used it parasites.
It’s also worth noting that Helium itself is primarily a wireless network powered by a cryptocurrency that was started by Haleem. Helium Mobile is a cell service that offers part of their connectivity via that network.
The future of Helium Mobile
Now that the free plan is gone, the cheapest plan Helium Mobile offers is $15/mo for 10GB of high-speed data. That’s the same price and data you can get from Tello, and you’re much less likely to be suddenly yanked off your plan over there.
Are the remaining Air and Infinity plans enough to keep customers signing up? The free Zero plan was what made Helium stand out. Without that, they’re just another MVNO.
Only time will tell if the remaining plans (and the pricing) will stick around.
Thanks to r/NoContract for sharing initially
