Paul12345534

This isn't exactly a graceful shutdown. The majority of their files were already deleted in the past on very short notice. I have no idea who still used or trusted their service.

Rapidshare shafted their paid users long ago (announcing the deletion of files on short notice) then they came back with a business model that was not exactly well thought-out.

I see there's a few downvotes, no worries. What private company is going to be here in 200 years? in 300? I know the NSA-hate is strong here but it's not like you'd have to add the most personal information. Perhaps someone like the Library of Congress could handle it. I've seen far too many private companies delete data with little notice to trust them.

I'm not suggesting you treat it as a private diary of intimate details, more like a time capsule for future generations to read. How you viewed the world around you, how you viewed world events. Maybe allow people to put time locks on their posted info, so it wouldn't be public for X number of years.

I wish the US govt. would sponsor something for citizens to store a bit about themselves and their family indefinitely. Even 20MB or 30MB per person, which seems modest and feasible, would allow people to pick a few of their most important photos and write a bit about their life for the next generations to find. I don't trust any private company to handle this well when you're talking about hundreds of years of future storage.

One of my Filipino friends was doing this sort of work. She did it well and got paid well but she finally quit over ethical concerns. I would find it incredibly entertaining if customer records ever leaked ;) although there'd be no way to authenticate them.

Once upon a time when I was first learning to program, I wrote a Python script to download them from bartleby.com and make them into nice CHM files :) some good stuff

I like Cebu City but the internet is not always as stable as what you might find in the US.

I could see this being used in repressive countries to find devices or memory cards full of e-books and learning materials.

As soon as they have the budget, they'll be watching you ;) For the meantime, dozens of foreign intelligence services are probably picking up the slack.

Agreed, 3-6 months notice is fine. This is not a classy way for them to address the issue.

I understand people need to make business decisions but short notice on something like this isn't exactly a classy move.

I love the Wayback Machine, I wish they'd archive all pages though even those that don't wish to be archived.... keeping them away from public view until copyrights expire someday.

I would love to see it live on with no new unneeded features, no changes made unless they are to fix bugs. Keep a stable long-term product and get as many people as possible looking over that code for flaws.

You couldn't pay me enough to give up Visual Studio

I think my other comment got lost. I use OneNote and UltraRecall now.

I used to use Macropool ContentSaver (now known as WebRecall) and gladly bought a license, but I didn't upgrade when their browser extensions quit working in newer browsers without paying to upgrade. I had also moved on because of breaking changes to the underlying storage/functionality.