As I understand it, Sold was a service to help you sell stuff.
Services like this are by their very nature used mostly as a once-off thing - someone wants to sell something they don't want anymore. Once it is sold then the "user" has no relationship with the Sold service.
So now people who are selling things no longer have the opportunity to use the Sold service anymore.
I think it is unfair to criticize people for choosing not to offer a service to new customers anymore.
More generally I think it is even more unfair to criticize people for closing a business that wasn't very successful (because success = profit, and if it was so profitable it wouldn't be sold to be shutdown).
Finally, aquihires are much, MUCH better than most of the alternatives for a failing business. We've all heard stories of users panicking when a service shuts down after someone fails to pay the hosting bills. Aquihires avoid that scenario.
Why would you think this? You seem to imagine that people only sell one thing ever. I buy and sell a fair bit of specialist equipement each year (pro audio stuff) and there's a lot more stuff that I'd like to sell but don't seriously try to because it's a bit of a hassle to research prices etc.
> Services like this are by their very nature used mostly as a once-off thing - someone wants to sell something they don't want anymore. Once it is sold then the "user" has no relationship with the Sold service.
There's people who make their entire living selling things online, and have been for at least 10-15 years (how long has eBay been around, again?)
From what I recall, Sold wasn't aimed at professional sellers - it was a middleman mostly targetted at people who just wanted to get rid of their stuff without having to deal with eBay directly, even if that meant getting less money for it.
Yes, this is true - but we are looking at a very specific case here: Sold, and my understanding is that there marketplace never really took off. That means it is doubtful there are people depending on Sold as a means of support.
As I understand it, Sold was a service to help you sell stuff.
Services like this are by their very nature used mostly as a once-off thing - someone wants to sell something they don't want anymore. Once it is sold then the "user" has no relationship with the Sold service.
So now people who are selling things no longer have the opportunity to use the Sold service anymore.
I think it is unfair to criticize people for choosing not to offer a service to new customers anymore.
More generally I think it is even more unfair to criticize people for closing a business that wasn't very successful (because success = profit, and if it was so profitable it wouldn't be sold to be shutdown).
Finally, aquihires are much, MUCH better than most of the alternatives for a failing business. We've all heard stories of users panicking when a service shuts down after someone fails to pay the hosting bills. Aquihires avoid that scenario.