Sounds like another outrageous case of digital sharecropping, where the value of the service was primarily provided by the users and the community they formed,

Sounds like another outrageous case of digital sharecropping, where the value of the service was primarily provided by the users and the community they formed, yet such value was not respected, and people's work--a cherished part of their lives--was casually thrown away. My more noble and magnanimous side would wish that unnamed service's owners and developers success in the face of such an awful mistake, while my harsher side feels like failure would serve them right for not respecting their users and not valuing things that should be valued.