[holgate]

There were actually a number of "VC" phases with TextDrive, starting with the "VC200" in 2004 that raised $40,000 from 200 pledges of $200 to acquire and set up the hardware--

http://photodude.com/2004/06/01/textdrive-or-how-to-raise-40...

That was followed by a number of upgrade offerings ("Mixed Grill", "3 Martini Lunch") in subsequent years, extending into the Joyent merger/acquisition, that required a larger lump-sum payment.

Their pitch on lifetime service? "How long is it good for? As long as we exist."

http://web.archive.org/web/20060202181857/http://textdrive.c...

Now, you can argue in strictly financial terms that those initial customers (of whom I'm one) have probably got their money's worth, and that the hosting landscape has changed sufficiently that the lifetime products are peripheral to Joyent's main business. The counterargument is that Joyent not only acquired TextDrive's customers, but the goodwill surrounding Dean Allen's original venture, and has traded on that goodwill ever since. Clearly, they feel that's not worth much these days.

Furthermore, giving people who've had eight years of not having to think about hosting options just 80 days to migrate, with explicit notice that their servers will be shut down and wiped on October 31, strikes me as pretty cheap.

[_delirium]

As far as getting one's money's worth, the "VC-like" pitching makes that odd. Obviously it wasn't an actual VC arrangement, but it had some similar aspects: you take a risk by giving $X now to buy a "lifetime account" with some startup that might be bankrupt next year. In return for helping to fund them and accepting that downside risk, your potential upside is that if they do succeed and exist long-term, you get what would in retrospect be below-market-priced service as a reward for your early support.

It doesn't make much sense to say that, hey, thanks for the "VC" investment when it was a risk to buy from us, but now that we're successful, you've gotten your money's worth.

[cromulent]

I switched across to the Mixed Grill in May 2006 (right around when John Gruber quit Joyent to do Daring Fireball full-time, I remember). It cost $499USD.

Did I expect more than 6 years? Yeah, I took them at their word - "as long as we exist".

[accountoftheday]

Their behavior here is embarrassing and labels them as not trustworthy in the future. Pacta sunt servanda. The other side ending up potentially getting the better end of the deal, a nowhere near certain thing here from a 2004-6 perspective where their customers took significant risk taking the deal, is not an equitable reason to terminate the services.