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According to this post it looks like they were given notice: http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-final-notice-geocities-is-closing-2009-10 http://www.businessi

According to this post it looks like they were given notice: http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-final-notice-geocities-is-closing-2009-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-final-notice-geocities-... Generally shutting down a service means you won't have access to it and the data on it anymore.

sp332 12y ago
Having notice is better than not having notice (like the AOL Hometown shutdown). But it's not an excuse. It's not your data. It would be one thing if you literally ran out of money, which Yahoo obviously didn't. And many startups that delete user data are "exiting" or "pivoting" and don't have that excuse either. In addition, you should be transparent with your users if it looks like they might lose their data in the forseeable future.
- leppr 12y ago
  Maybe it's the users' fault for relying so much on client-server architectures. There are some initiatives for P2P/F2F social networks but they need help.
  - sp332 12y ago
    There we go, blame the user.
  - leppr 12y ago
    People have been using Facebook and complaining when it spills out their info years after Facebook got bad publicity for privacy related offenses. People still get offended and complain when their iOS app gets rejected years after Apple got bad publicity for needlessly censoring apps. People still use tumblr a year after Yahoo bought it and deleted many blogs to clean the site for advertisers, and that after they shut down the previous social network they bought. The users have a choice, despite how annoying those sign-up nags can be. They chose to use services which have reputations anyone can learn about if they care to do so, so yes it's partly their fault.
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  Most of these comments and similar above sound great on HN, but terrible ideas when you are actually operating a business which is trying to make money. You drop your unprofitable services and move those resources to other areas of your business which will make you money. Google gets heat and does this all the time, and they do it for smart business reasons.
  - sp332 12y ago
    If an unfunded team can grab 9TB of Reader data, and the Internet Archive can host it forever, Google really has no excuse here. https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_greader https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_greader
    - res0nat0r 12y ago
      What you are looking for is a charity, Google is a business, not a charity.
      - sp332 12y ago
        Well actually http://google.org/ http://google.org/

sp332 12y ago

Having notice is better than not having notice (like the AOL Hometown shutdown). But it's not an excuse. It's not your data. It would be one thing if you literally ran out of money, which Yahoo obviously didn't. And many startups that delete user data are "exiting" or "pivoting" and don't have that excuse either. In addition, you should be transparent with your users if it looks like they might lose their data in the forseeable future.

leppr 12y ago
Maybe it's the users' fault for relying so much on client-server architectures. There are some initiatives for P2P/F2F social networks but they need help.
- sp332 12y ago
  There we go, blame the user.
- leppr 12y ago
  People have been using Facebook and complaining when it spills out their info years after Facebook got bad publicity for privacy related offenses. People still get offended and complain when their iOS app gets rejected years after Apple got bad publicity for needlessly censoring apps. People still use tumblr a year after Yahoo bought it and deleted many blogs to clean the site for advertisers, and that after they shut down the previous social network they bought. The users have a choice, despite how annoying those sign-up nags can be. They chose to use services which have reputations anyone can learn about if they care to do so, so yes it's partly their fault.
res0nat0r 12y ago
Most of these comments and similar above sound great on HN, but terrible ideas when you are actually operating a business which is trying to make money. You drop your unprofitable services and move those resources to other areas of your business which will make you money. Google gets heat and does this all the time, and they do it for smart business reasons.
- sp332 12y ago
  If an unfunded team can grab 9TB of Reader data, and the Internet Archive can host it forever, Google really has no excuse here. https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_greader https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_greader
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    What you are looking for is a charity, Google is a business, not a charity.
    - sp332 12y ago
      Well actually http://google.org/ http://google.org/