Thanks for so much generosity. It really is the case that the "free good stuff on the internet" era is fading (or even just "free sucky stuff"). It isn't just the decline in advertising, though that's part of it. An underappreciated thing is that "everybody" went to facebook because contempt for online communities led to them being shut down most places, instead of recognizing that the way to deal with racists on your local news sites (for example) is to *get rid of the damn racists* instead of complaining about the losers on the internet (you know, your readers) generally. Cultivating (or at least tolerating!) a community is a big part of what the internet offered, and the general consensus was always "shut down the comments," instead of "hire someone to manage the community." Who do you think your customers are? Who do you think is going to care when you go away?
So many bad decisions killed the good stuff on the internet. I still can't believe that after being conned about 5 previous times by completely bullshit advertising metrics from facebook, so many sites committed suicide by firing all their reporters and hiring one guy with an iphone to make Cool Videos and then wondered why the bazillions facebook promised never materialized. Everybody who had ever seen the internet told them this was stupid, but they did it anyway.
The old internet was pretty good!
