7 ms·

Notice of Shutdown

49 points by chejazi 9y ago

52-6F-62 9y ago
Is there any similar service to Docracy or will they be leaving a noticeable void?
- conbandit 9y ago
  The Free Law Project (https://free.law/ https://free.law/) is the only thing remotely similar I can think of.
- nikanj 9y ago
  They’re shutting down, because not enough people are using them. Not sure if that means the void is unnoticeable.
- lars_francke 9y ago
  I've only learned about docracy from this post (which is a shame) but I've used https://dochub.com/ https://dochub.com/ in the past and it works really well. Not having used docracy I'm not sure if there's feature parity but it at least seems similar (e.g. editing & signing PDFs/documents) edit: I see that one of the (if not _the_) feature of docracy was the shared library of documents/templates. That's something Dochub doesn't have I think.
- alexanderlabrie 9y ago
  Spent a number of hours researching this yesterday and settled on http://www.concordnow.com/ http://www.concordnow.com/
driverdan 9y ago
Is this something that Internet Archive or Public Resource would take over? Seems like it'd be best under a NFP.
- zekevermillion 9y ago
  Many of the forms are scraped from EDGAR anyway, so if you really need a standard contract you can usually find an exemplar. Typical startup docs can be had from Series Seed, NVCA, Clerky or one of the many marketing sites like cooleygo. I wish there was a more focused and well-funded effort by the big firms to agree on standard forms, and to annotate them. But people who have tried can tell you it is a Sisyphean task to actually make this happen.
s0l1dsnak3123 9y ago
This is a shame! I've been using Docracy for years as a good, free alternative to echosign. Hopefully something similar will spring up in its place.
reustle 9y ago
I would love to see some of these projects simply go open source, or have an 'open for offers' time for other companies to bid on taking over operations. I'm sure many people (myself included) would be happy to keep services like this running, instead of simply turning the lights out and putting the code in the trash.
- shimms 9y ago
  Acquisitions take time. And money. If you're running out of both, the risk of undertaking a long and expensive process, that may result is nothing is risky, and in some cases illegal (taking on debt [legal fees on terms] that you can't reasonably pay = trading while insolvent). I'm not suggesting at all that in this instance the company was in such a state, but often I've seen founders run it right to the line believing things will turn around, and they don't. At that point, there is no reasonable way to sell the assets or ownership of the company easily.
- CM30 9y ago
  I've always wondered why more companies don't do this. I mean sure, if you've got a buyout offer then I can see why you might not want to open source your work, but in the case of a standard shut down, it'd certainly be better to let people get some use out of your work rather than none.
- tcd 9y ago
  > I'm sure many people (myself included) would be happy to keep services like this running Why don't you then? Send an email saying you're willing to donate whatever it costs to keep the servers running. Yeah. Thought so.
  - setr 9y ago
    A thousand people running various size instances of the service versus a single company running it for everyone has significantly different cost properties, for each involved party
zekevermillion 9y ago
It was very generous of the founders to arrange to keep Docracy up for this long, even after the business was shelved. I enjoyed seeing the stats on the few docs I had shared on Docracy over the years. The business model was obviously not quite there, although there is perpetual interest in any kind of tech that reduces legal costs. It is a shame that firms are so jealous about sharing knowledge publicly.
t0mbstone 9y ago
I find it really irritating when project like this decide to just shut down without any alternative. Why not give your users some options? After all, your users are the people who generated all of the free content for your site. It's the least you can do. For example, instead of shutting down, you could open source it, or at least allow people to download and host their own mirror. If you aren't willing to do that, then why not offer some kind of paid option or donation option? I get it. Their dream was for the site to be free and ad supported. But if their hosting costs are that high, at least give people the option of pitching in! It would take 5 minutes to post a paypal link or a bitcoin link. But nope, they haven't even done that. Ugh. So irritating.
- ptest1 9y ago
  While I understand your frustration, shutting down a service — especially if you have no money to spend a lot of time on the shutdown — is always hard. It looks like these folks have provided an export option and a reasonable shutdown window, which is worth commending.
- shimms 9y ago
  If only it were as easy as that. Open sourcing it might be the most straight forward option, but there could be complicated intellectual property issues behind the scenes that make that prohibitively difficult, or expensive. A paid option? Isn't that what every single commercial business attempts to do? The option of using a product or service in exchange for paying money. The failure rate for businesses is huge. What makes you think a paid option would actually work? It isn't a sure thing, nor are donate buttons, and in the time you need to take to test pricing models, tweak copy, increase conversion etc, you continue to lose money each month, and have no guarantee of success. I think you drastically underestimate the effort involved in "post a paypay link or a bitcoin link". What about the cost of compliance? The cost of accounting? Customer service? Cost of mitigating risk? There are a heap of costs to running a business. How do you know if the donations you (probably won't) get will cover them? Then what? You've lost more money. At some point you just have to call it a day.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  This comment provides a different perspective: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16478166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16478166
joshontheweb 9y ago
Bummer. I use their service and would have paid but they never asked. Good alternatives paid or otherwise?
artur_makly 9y ago
damn shame.

Notice of Shutdown

49 points by chejazi 9y ago

52-6F-62 9y ago

Is there any similar service to Docracy or will they be leaving a noticeable void?

conbandit 9y ago
The Free Law Project (https://free.law/ https://free.law/) is the only thing remotely similar I can think of.
nikanj 9y ago
They’re shutting down, because not enough people are using them. Not sure if that means the void is unnoticeable.
lars_francke 9y ago
I've only learned about docracy from this post (which is a shame) but I've used https://dochub.com/ https://dochub.com/ in the past and it works really well. Not having used docracy I'm not sure if there's feature parity but it at least seems similar (e.g. editing & signing PDFs/documents) edit: I see that one of the (if not _the_) feature of docracy was the shared library of documents/templates. That's something Dochub doesn't have I think.
alexanderlabrie 9y ago
Spent a number of hours researching this yesterday and settled on http://www.concordnow.com/ http://www.concordnow.com/

driverdan 9y ago

Is this something that Internet Archive or Public Resource would take over? Seems like it'd be best under a NFP.

zekevermillion 9y ago
Many of the forms are scraped from EDGAR anyway, so if you really need a standard contract you can usually find an exemplar. Typical startup docs can be had from Series Seed, NVCA, Clerky or one of the many marketing sites like cooleygo. I wish there was a more focused and well-funded effort by the big firms to agree on standard forms, and to annotate them. But people who have tried can tell you it is a Sisyphean task to actually make this happen.

s0l1dsnak3123 9y ago

This is a shame! I've been using Docracy for years as a good, free alternative to echosign. Hopefully something similar will spring up in its place.

reustle 9y ago

I would love to see some of these projects simply go open source, or have an 'open for offers' time for other companies to bid on taking over operations. I'm sure many people (myself included) would be happy to keep services like this running, instead of simply turning the lights out and putting the code in the trash.

shimms 9y ago
Acquisitions take time. And money. If you're running out of both, the risk of undertaking a long and expensive process, that may result is nothing is risky, and in some cases illegal (taking on debt [legal fees on terms] that you can't reasonably pay = trading while insolvent). I'm not suggesting at all that in this instance the company was in such a state, but often I've seen founders run it right to the line believing things will turn around, and they don't. At that point, there is no reasonable way to sell the assets or ownership of the company easily.
CM30 9y ago
I've always wondered why more companies don't do this. I mean sure, if you've got a buyout offer then I can see why you might not want to open source your work, but in the case of a standard shut down, it'd certainly be better to let people get some use out of your work rather than none.
tcd 9y ago
> I'm sure many people (myself included) would be happy to keep services like this running Why don't you then? Send an email saying you're willing to donate whatever it costs to keep the servers running. Yeah. Thought so.
- setr 9y ago
  A thousand people running various size instances of the service versus a single company running it for everyone has significantly different cost properties, for each involved party

zekevermillion 9y ago

It was very generous of the founders to arrange to keep Docracy up for this long, even after the business was shelved. I enjoyed seeing the stats on the few docs I had shared on Docracy over the years. The business model was obviously not quite there, although there is perpetual interest in any kind of tech that reduces legal costs. It is a shame that firms are so jealous about sharing knowledge publicly.

t0mbstone 9y ago

I find it really irritating when project like this decide to just shut down without any alternative. Why not give your users some options? After all, your users are the people who generated all of the free content for your site. It's the least you can do. For example, instead of shutting down, you could open source it, or at least allow people to download and host their own mirror. If you aren't willing to do that, then why not offer some kind of paid option or donation option? I get it. Their dream was for the site to be free and ad supported. But if their hosting costs are that high, at least give people the option of pitching in! It would take 5 minutes to post a paypal link or a bitcoin link. But nope, they haven't even done that. Ugh. So irritating.

ptest1 9y ago
While I understand your frustration, shutting down a service — especially if you have no money to spend a lot of time on the shutdown — is always hard. It looks like these folks have provided an export option and a reasonable shutdown window, which is worth commending.
shimms 9y ago
If only it were as easy as that. Open sourcing it might be the most straight forward option, but there could be complicated intellectual property issues behind the scenes that make that prohibitively difficult, or expensive. A paid option? Isn't that what every single commercial business attempts to do? The option of using a product or service in exchange for paying money. The failure rate for businesses is huge. What makes you think a paid option would actually work? It isn't a sure thing, nor are donate buttons, and in the time you need to take to test pricing models, tweak copy, increase conversion etc, you continue to lose money each month, and have no guarantee of success. I think you drastically underestimate the effort involved in "post a paypay link or a bitcoin link". What about the cost of compliance? The cost of accounting? Customer service? Cost of mitigating risk? There are a heap of costs to running a business. How do you know if the donations you (probably won't) get will cover them? Then what? You've lost more money. At some point you just have to call it a day.
forapurpose 9y ago
This comment provides a different perspective: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16478166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16478166

joshontheweb 9y ago

Bummer. I use their service and would have paid but they never asked. Good alternatives paid or otherwise?

artur_makly 9y ago

damn shame.