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Comment by OoTheNigerian | Hacker News Reader

No one is taliking about the users.

Maybe it is me but my 'moral antenna' says it wrong to leave users suddenly stranded.

Yes it was a 'free service', but the free users made it possible to get millions in investments. Users investest time and effort into making your service valuable.

Here is how I would do things differently.

Depending on the cost, I will have a shut down period of 3-6 months. Longer if possible.

I will make it easy for users to export AND import their data into a similar service. In this case 4sq. That is the very least they should do. The data from a users Gowalla account is ppractically useless if it is not put in context of a similar app/service. Telling millions of users "take your shit out by next month, thanks for your time" is not cool at all.

FriendFeed did it much better. Etacts is the worst I have come accross.

It is not cool for Gowalla, it will also not be cool for gmail.

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If you're a user in the modern internet, it is not cool for you to keep yourself so much at the mercy of companies whom you don't pay.

I always keep a Thunderbird client running in the background of my laptop, which sucks out all emails from gmail and keeps a local copy. Yes, it would not be cool for gmail to one day suddenly cut me off, and yes, I feel Google, with its "Do no Evil" policy will not do that to me. But still, I prefer to make my copy of important data right now, thank you very much, instead of whining later that this is not cool.

Same with my Flickr pics and Delicious links (downloaded using a script). And my Facebook data I really don't care about.

I would pay for a single service that does this across most major internet properties. i.e. pulls my data for me onto, say, an S3 share.

There's a few of them: http://www.sitepoint.com/backup-social-media-profiles/

Like Backupify? (not to be confused with Backify) https://www.backupify.com/

(PS: Rob, if you're on here, you still owe me a beer next time you're in town. :)

>> And my Facebook data I really don't care about.

If you are based in the EU, them the european data-protection laws give you the right to get a copy of all the data Facebook has on you, not just the data you uploaded but everything.

They have up to 40 days to deliver a CD-ROM with all your data.

The operators of free services do not owe their users anything --- apart from safeguarding any data they took from users --- when their companies fail. This "somebody think about the users" meme needs to die. A company offering free service has an overriding first obligation to its own employees.

This "users using free services are of no value" meme needs to die.

Twitter is nothing without their users so are many of these web services. Getting traction depends on people using your service. If it becomes the norm that companies built will not exist in 2 years, why then should I invest my time in the service especially the free ones.

I have run a startup that was not financially viable so I know it is not the fault of founders if things do not go according to plan. However, my co founder and I have left the site up since it does not cost much to do. However, if it did, we will be sure to make the transition as easy as possible.

I am not saying users should be paid or compensated but should be thought of.

The management team of a failing company owes its first and most important responsibility to its employees, to make sure they're as well taken care of as possible.

Following that, it owes its investors the maximal return on their investment.

The users got their service for free. That was the deal: they use the site for free, in return for using the site. Any other obligation is a fiction. I might just as productively argue that it's the user's fault Gowalla failed --- punish the users for going to Foursquare! Except that's stupid, because Gowalla and its free users don't have any obligation to each other.

Future "free" services depend on users willing to rely on free services. One of those may be born every minute, but it's still bad for the typical startup if too many people get burned too badly and begin demanding control over their data. Some "group pressure" to take care of the users makes sense.

(This seems to be the most cynical HN comment I've ever written.)

That's why I think we have the odd reversed PR situation, where instead of companies trying to deny responsibility to their users, and critics arguing that they should be held responsible, we have the opposite. Companies running free services themselves do try to build a perception that they feel a sense of moral responsibility towards their users, cultivating a sort of "we're good stewards of our lovely users and their data, and wouldn't sell you out" perception. And their critics (like, say, Jason Scott or Richard Stallman) are the ones who emphasize the idea that free cloud services don't owe you anything (and therefore you shouldn't trust them to have your interests in mind).

They already said they will be providing a way for users to export their data. http://blog.gowalla.com/post/13782997303/gowalla-going-to-fa...

Also Gowalla for the past year has has allowed users to checkin to 4sq, and facebook and share on twitter and tumblr and has moved to be more of a travel/spot info site. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/212251/gowalla...

Keep in mind that with most of these free services the users are the pawns. If you're not paying, or getting paid, then you are the thing being traded.

Companies exist to make their investors and owners money. Gowalla did not exist so you could check-in to places. It made a check-in service because they thought that was their most exploitable money-making opportunity.

Don't fight this. You won't win and will only frustrate yourself.

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