It's true: People don't keep their contact information up to date, don't make backups (or do so infrequently), and don't always read (or act on) that super impo

It's true: People don't keep their contact information up to date, don't make backups (or do so infrequently), and don't always read (or act on) that super important e-mail until too late. To me, that's precisely what makes AOL's actions inexcusable. These are predictable, human faults. If some users are stupid/lazy/inattentive, then AOL needs to deal with that fact. Acknowledging reality doesn't excuse you from dealing with it! And dealing with it doesn't seem that hard or expensive. It will take some effort (== money), but this can be made up for by happy users, placing ads on shutdown messages, and/or other means. 1. Give users more time to export their data and send reminders for any users that have not exported their data about the impending shutdown. 2. On the date of the shutdown, replace the public side of the sites with a message about the service's discontinuation. 3. After the date of the shutdown, retain the ability for site owners to login. When site owners login, just send them the export of their content. Leave the service in this "export-only" state for at least another month. 4. Continue to send reminders for anyone who still has not availed themselves of the opportunity to export their data. 5. Finally, cut a full backup of user content and shutdown the hardware. Replace the whole site with a message telling site owners to contact customer service if they need their data. Customer service can explain that the data is still available, but will take time to recover from backups. Keep a queue of the stragglers, and every two weeks or so, spend a little time to recover data for these users.