Your site is always evolving and improving. You’re always working out bugs and kinks, regardless of if it’s Beta, Alpha, Pre-Alpha, or Version 12.

Since “Beta” sites could encompass anywhere from a handful to millions of users, I don’t think it’s possible to define clear rules as to what’s expected in a Beta product. For a given company, it comes down to how mission-critical the userbase of a given product (regardless of its beta status) is to the product’s success.

For instance, when Gmail was being beta tested internally, if something blew up it wouldn’t affect their customer base. They could even axe the whole project without any real consequence.

But now, countless people and businesses rely on Gmail for their businesses and livelihoods– and bugs, security flaws, and downtime would be serious problems now, regardless of the fact that Gmail is in Beta.

It’s time for us to drop this “beta” business. Call it “beta” when you’re testing it internally. When you have thousands of people using your service, it’s time to face the fact that you’re selling a finished product, perfect or not.

Before using GrandCentral as the main number for my business, I read their “terms of service”. It was pretty clear that I shouldn’t be doing so:
The GrandCentral Services are for personal, non-commercial usage. GrandCentral reserves the right to immediately disconnect or modify a Subscriber’s Service if GrandCentral determines, in its sole discretion, that Subscriber’s use of the Service is, or at any time was, inconsistent with normal personal, non-commercial usage patterns.

Regardless, I did choose to start using it to receive business calls because so many others seemed to be doing so. So, you’re far from alone. Best of luck and I hope the outages don’t hurt you in any way.

Kind regards,
Justis Peters