Jimmy Carter campaigned against the tax deductibility of the three-martini lunch in 1976. Dean Allen named a hosting product after it in 2006. The price was $1,399. “An Amazing Offer If We Do Say So Ourselves,” they said. They were not wrong.

What you got

One payment bought three products. TextDrive Business Hosting — described on the product page as relentlessly stable and feature-packed — plus 30 GiB of Strongspace, a secure file backup service, plus full access for 25 members of your team to Joyent’s suite of organization, communication and productivity applications.

How long

“As long as we exist.”

TextDrive had made this promise before. The VC200 in 2004 — the founding round, 200 people at $200 each — carried the same words. The Three Martini Lunch repeated them in 2006. The offer came a few months after TextDrive’s merger with Joyent, when the combined company was at its most optimistic and the products were genuinely good.

In August 2012, Joyent cancelled all lifetime accounts. Dean came back, relaunched TextDrive independently, tried to honor the agreements. He couldn’t sustain it. TextDrive closed in March 2014.

The promise ran out before they did.

Further reading

The original offer is preserved at the Wayback Machine. The TextDrive memorial documents the full story.