"The company accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, and they apparently want more of a return than Ning is able to provide as a free service."
Who the hell invests hundreds of millions of dollars in a free service that is being backed by a "bazillionaire"? Surely if Andreessen felt Ning was worth the money he'd have paid for it himself and pocketed the winnings? This is not some desperate guy looking for venture capital...
it a shame, something like this happened to a generative component forum. the free service reached max use capacity or something and shut down the system. years of posts and very useful info LOST. the community has never been the same since. but at least you have the option to pay to keep it running.
This is fairly common, afaik. For example, many people invest in Berkshire Hathaway mainly because the guy who runs is a (much much bigger) "bazillionaire".
I guess the train of thought is that if he is a bazillionaire he knows how to make money so you invest with him, and at the same time he keeps it public even if he has enough capital because he wants to distribute risk with other investors.
We are watching what Ning is doing. They have said that we will not have many details for a couple more weeks. Currently we are do pay Ning for this service, so we expect there will be little effecct on the site in the near future.
Your comments about the need to backup and value all the information that is on this site are great. It got me thinking about the need to aquire a backup from Ning of the site. I will get on that. Thanks.