It's sad to see that happen to a company, but where can we find information about what they did exactly, and where it went wrong?
IMHO, it wasn't a good idea for TextDrive to sell lifetime subscriptions, but if Joyent knew that when they purchased TextDrive, they should have continued to honor them.
Here's a screenshot ( http://cl.ly/UFhp ) from one of their lifetime offers. Of note: "How long will it last? As long as we exist." At that point, early 2006, TextDrive was a Joyent company. Joyent still exists.