All posts in free services

Like I said earlier, maybe 2009 will be the year that people start taking data ownership seriously.

A spate of closings from Google, and the elimination of any free version of Sprout Builder should go a ways toward reinforcing what should have been obvious for a long time: when you rely on a free service, you are ceding control.

And, services close. License terms change. We don't need to look very hard to see examples of what happens when these services go away. Personally, I'd rather take on the work of archiving my own work (aka, keeping track of my own stuff) than trying to rebuild large pieces of my own work. And yes, Open Source tools help us have more control of our own work.

RE services closing, this should not be surprising. Really, I'm more surprised that anyone would actually be surprised.

And, a ht to Stephen Downes for continuing to highlight these issues, and Brian Lamb and Cole Camplese say more intelligent things about this.