I read the name "Dave Winer" today for the first time, and thought, "Who's that?" Anyway, it turns out that he's got something of a reputation for being a bit of a jerk, as well as being some kind of father to the whole blogging concept, or something like that. Today's story is that apparently Winer -- who is the guy behind Weblogs.com -- had been hosting something like 3000 blogs for free, but then apparently decided that he could neither afford to keep doing this nor muster up the desire to operate his own hosting business, so he made the decision to close that all out. All well and good.
Except that he didn't tell anybody beforehand. He simply pulled the plug.
Comment on this seems to flow in two directions: one, that anyone who uses free services runs this kind of risk, and two, that even if the service provided is free, one still has a moral obligation to fill them in on substantial changes. I fall in the second camp, personally. And I can't really feel that much sympathy at all for Winer. Even with my low level of tech knowledge, I'm aware that hosting gets expensive, and Winer's the one who took on 3000 bloggers. No one may have held a gun to anyone's head to accept his services, but likewise, no one held a gun to Winer's head to offer them.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
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