How is that a cop out? You get your money back so whatever use you got from it was effectively free apart from the minor inconvenience of moving over to another service (which they are kind enough to make suggestions for).
I think people are choosing to see this from 37S (or any other software co's) perspective. Fine, whatever 37S's expectations were to begin with didn't work out, so 37S is closing the service. Makes perfect sense, and godspeed, 37S. But the other side of a transaction is a customer that put money, time and effort into this product. Even if 37S gives back the money, the customer isn't made completely whole; I don't think it's illogical to think folks wouldn't be completely happy with this outcome, no matter how great of a job 37S did communicating the closing.
If my favorite coffeeshop closes I am inconvenienced because maybe I now have to walk further for worse coffee, but they don't really owe me anything.
It's not like alternatives are hard to find either.
Obviously it's a very good showing that 37S is refunding customers their money, but I wouldn't be completely happy if I were a customer since what I was promised (the service) is no longer being delivered. I would feel a little burned.
Do this often enough, and customer trust is eroded. How many folks are going to think twice before signing up for 37S next new product? I would.
According to the site , they are giving you your data back anyway.
Which doesn't mean that closing in ten years or ten days would be the same, of course.
Sometimes things just don't make business sense and you kill them. I have killed stuff in the past that has literally had 1 user , it wouldn't seem sensible at all to keep it running simply for that one person (unless they were paying me significantly).
The best way to judge a company in my opinion is how they handle it when they do. In this case distribution to customers was minimized.
So the refund is actually being generous.
Now I'm glad I didn't recommend it, though I wish the circumstances had been different.
It's like going to an all you can eat, eating the entire buffet yourself and then demanding they go out and find you more to satisfy your limitless hunger.
37S promised the product "forever", and provided it for 4 months - even if you didn't think "forever" actually meant until the end of time, I think it is reasonable to assume it meant more than a year.