8 ms·

Users, please don't become highly dependent on "free" sites with no obvious or proven business model.

by brk 14y ago

smackfu 14y ago
Did they not have ads? Because "free with ads" supports most of the internet, and I don't think anyone can tell which things they should rely on and which they can't. I mean, once they were bought by NBC, they din't seem any less dependable than MSNBC or such.
geoffw8 14y ago
Why should a user know about a sites business model? To an average joe you letting me sign up and do stuff is all I know. While "giving a week" isn't a rule, it sure sounds like it might be the nicer thing to do. You spout your answer like its the obvious and "derrr" response, but in all reality its not the users responsibility to provide longevity. And lets face it, we (startups) would be totally f'd if users didn't become entirely dependent on our services early doors, perhaps even pre-biz model.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - untog 14y ago
    But I think what Geoff said about what startups want is very interesting, and true. We persuade users to depend on us because we need it for success. To then turn around as a community and say "ha, why did you do that, idiot?" seems disingenuous to me.
    - gwillen 14y ago
      'Turning around' implies it's the same group of users doing both. I, for one, have never persuaded a user to depend on a startup; I am squarely on the side of advising users never to depend on anything without a well-understood business plan, EVER.
- brk 14y ago
  You spout your answer like its the obvious and "derrr" response You make a good point, and I did not mean that as the "obvious" response, I meant it as a simple counter-response. As I kind of mentioned in my other comment, I think there can be many cases where the startup that is shutting down is going to be unable to afford a graceful wind-down, for various reasons. Startups and Users are basically at-will employers and employees in a sense. Either can leave the other unexpectedly at any time, and I think it would be wise to approach things with the understanding that neither should expect the other to "just be there".
- anon1385 14y ago
  >And lets face it, we (startups) would be totally f'd if users didn't become entirely dependent on our services early doors, perhaps even pre-biz model. I (and many other people) try to educate users not to do this. It's an uphill battle, most people are not interested until the day they lose a bunch of their data when some startup webapp they uses has burned through all their cash and closes down. This is becoming increasingly common though, so I think people are starting to realise that they can't trust cloud services/web apps. I'd like to think raising awareness will help end the trend towards centralised computing that denies users control of their data, but most people still don't even back up their local files, so… These kinds of shutdowns are useful examples for the next time I'm having this discussion with somebody. Although I'd rather a bunch of people didn't have to lose data I feel nothing will change until this happens a quite a few more times with bigger sites. Which is to say, I'm afraid I hope you are "totally f'd" because web startups are a malign force when it comes to data security. It's nothing personal…
angryasian 14y ago
Are we to assume that things that you pay for will offer lifetime support or sites that do charge can't shut down ? Even if you are paying for something and the number of people paying don't cover the costs of the company its likely it won't make it.
mnicole 14y ago
Getting tired of this response. I'm dealing with this issue right now with Snip.it. They were clearly in talks with Yahoo! about being purchased (and potentially others as they were putting out surveys every few months about usage and purpose that I filled out each and every time), but didn't inform any of us that the site would literally be shut off late one day and we would be unable to retrieve (or even look at in read-only mode) all of the data we'd put on the site. We were initially able to grab a PDF or HTML file of the links we'd posted, but none of the additional descriptions we'd place along with them. They told us to try Kippt and Diigo but the way they'd formatted the file wasn't friendly to either of these services, which would lump them all together instead of separate them by the categories we'd placed them in (although it would "tag" them with the category, but that doesn't help me navigate when my tags aren't listed out anywhere). When I complained about the descriptions issue on their Facebook page, they added them a few days later and another service (keeeb) tried to reach out and ask them how they could better serve the fallout (not sure if they responded, but keeeb looks like a neat service). I got in touch with Kippt to ask if they could figure out a way to get the imports to work correctly since they were being advertised, and they asked for my export file and said they'd work on it, but I haven't heard anything back. I don't care if your service is free or not (and I even informed Snip.it I would have paid for the service, as some people replied on the linked post did as well), you owe it to the users that gave a shit about you and wanted to see you succeed to have some sort of grace period, and better, to escort them to similar services so they aren't left completely in the dust, having spent months and years of time contributing to and advertising for your company. At least in my situation, they tried to do the latter, even though these services weren't actually anything like their own and couldn't parse the data. Whatever Yahoo! plans on doing with the Snip.it team, I won't be using it. I hope they're happy they've alienated a vibrant and growing audience.
- brk 14y ago
  Getting tired of this response. Understood, but the problem seems to be growing lately in the sense of "shoestring funded" startups going for broke. When it finally becomes apparent that the business can't continue there are not always a lot of resources left for a graceful shutdown. My opinion is that the "you owe it to your users..." idea is dangerous. That line of thinking could eventually lead to a class action lawsuit over something like "lost images" from the next failed social pic app. Which increases the costs and risks associated with trying new ideas, which discourages that innovation. I think that users need to better understand the web-things that they grow "attached" to, and not just continually expect all web sites to be free magic unicorn tears from the sky. This "fremium" model is honestly not scaling very feel, yet people are becoming more expectant that simple sites are free. The ad-supported avenue isn't working out all that great for advertisers, site owners, or users either.
cryowaffle 14y ago
What a silly statement. What about sites that we charge for, they feel free to die? How are we supposed to know someone's business model?
yuliyp 14y ago
The general idea is that startups which shut down like this impose a cost on _every other startup_ out there, because it makes people more hesitant to actually use and rely on services provided by startups due to their memory of being burned. Yes, this includes the next startup that the people working on that particular startup are going to work on too.

Users, please don't become highly dependent on "free" sites with no obvious or proven business model.

by brk 14y ago

Users, please don't become highly dependent on "free" sites with no obvious or proven business model.

Did they not have ads? Because "free with ads" supports most of the internet, and I don't think anyone can tell which things they should rely on and which they can't. I mean, once they were bought by NBC, they din't seem any less dependable than MSNBC or such.

geoffw8 14y ago

Why should a user know about a sites business model? To an average joe you letting me sign up and do stuff is all I know. While "giving a week" isn't a rule, it sure sounds like it might be the nicer thing to do. You spout your answer like its the obvious and "derrr" response, but in all reality its not the users responsibility to provide longevity. And lets face it, we (startups) would be totally f'd if users didn't become entirely dependent on our services early doors, perhaps even pre-biz model.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- untog 14y ago
  But I think what Geoff said about what startups want is very interesting, and true. We persuade users to depend on us because we need it for success. To then turn around as a community and say "ha, why did you do that, idiot?" seems disingenuous to me.
  - gwillen 14y ago
    'Turning around' implies it's the same group of users doing both. I, for one, have never persuaded a user to depend on a startup; I am squarely on the side of advising users never to depend on anything without a well-understood business plan, EVER.
brk 14y ago
You spout your answer like its the obvious and "derrr" response You make a good point, and I did not mean that as the "obvious" response, I meant it as a simple counter-response. As I kind of mentioned in my other comment, I think there can be many cases where the startup that is shutting down is going to be unable to afford a graceful wind-down, for various reasons. Startups and Users are basically at-will employers and employees in a sense. Either can leave the other unexpectedly at any time, and I think it would be wise to approach things with the understanding that neither should expect the other to "just be there".
anon1385 14y ago
>And lets face it, we (startups) would be totally f'd if users didn't become entirely dependent on our services early doors, perhaps even pre-biz model. I (and many other people) try to educate users not to do this. It's an uphill battle, most people are not interested until the day they lose a bunch of their data when some startup webapp they uses has burned through all their cash and closes down. This is becoming increasingly common though, so I think people are starting to realise that they can't trust cloud services/web apps. I'd like to think raising awareness will help end the trend towards centralised computing that denies users control of their data, but most people still don't even back up their local files, so… These kinds of shutdowns are useful examples for the next time I'm having this discussion with somebody. Although I'd rather a bunch of people didn't have to lose data I feel nothing will change until this happens a quite a few more times with bigger sites. Which is to say, I'm afraid I hope you are "totally f'd" because web startups are a malign force when it comes to data security. It's nothing personal…

angryasian 14y ago

Are we to assume that things that you pay for will offer lifetime support or sites that do charge can't shut down ? Even if you are paying for something and the number of people paying don't cover the costs of the company its likely it won't make it.

mnicole 14y ago

Getting tired of this response. I'm dealing with this issue right now with Snip.it. They were clearly in talks with Yahoo! about being purchased (and potentially others as they were putting out surveys every few months about usage and purpose that I filled out each and every time), but didn't inform any of us that the site would literally be shut off late one day and we would be unable to retrieve (or even look at in read-only mode) all of the data we'd put on the site. We were initially able to grab a PDF or HTML file of the links we'd posted, but none of the additional descriptions we'd place along with them. They told us to try Kippt and Diigo but the way they'd formatted the file wasn't friendly to either of these services, which would lump them all together instead of separate them by the categories we'd placed them in (although it would "tag" them with the category, but that doesn't help me navigate when my tags aren't listed out anywhere). When I complained about the descriptions issue on their Facebook page, they added them a few days later and another service (keeeb) tried to reach out and ask them how they could better serve the fallout (not sure if they responded, but keeeb looks like a neat service). I got in touch with Kippt to ask if they could figure out a way to get the imports to work correctly since they were being advertised, and they asked for my export file and said they'd work on it, but I haven't heard anything back. I don't care if your service is free or not (and I even informed Snip.it I would have paid for the service, as some people replied on the linked post did as well), you owe it to the users that gave a shit about you and wanted to see you succeed to have some sort of grace period, and better, to escort them to similar services so they aren't left completely in the dust, having spent months and years of time contributing to and advertising for your company. At least in my situation, they tried to do the latter, even though these services weren't actually anything like their own and couldn't parse the data. Whatever Yahoo! plans on doing with the Snip.it team, I won't be using it. I hope they're happy they've alienated a vibrant and growing audience.

brk 14y ago
Getting tired of this response. Understood, but the problem seems to be growing lately in the sense of "shoestring funded" startups going for broke. When it finally becomes apparent that the business can't continue there are not always a lot of resources left for a graceful shutdown. My opinion is that the "you owe it to your users..." idea is dangerous. That line of thinking could eventually lead to a class action lawsuit over something like "lost images" from the next failed social pic app. Which increases the costs and risks associated with trying new ideas, which discourages that innovation. I think that users need to better understand the web-things that they grow "attached" to, and not just continually expect all web sites to be free magic unicorn tears from the sky. This "fremium" model is honestly not scaling very feel, yet people are becoming more expectant that simple sites are free. The ad-supported avenue isn't working out all that great for advertisers, site owners, or users either.

cryowaffle 14y ago

What a silly statement. What about sites that we charge for, they feel free to die? How are we supposed to know someone's business model?

yuliyp 14y ago

The general idea is that startups which shut down like this impose a cost on _every other startup_ out there, because it makes people more hesitant to actually use and rely on services provided by startups due to their memory of being burned. Yes, this includes the next startup that the people working on that particular startup are going to work on too.