Tremendously saddened and upset about this, but I guess it makes a twisted kind of sense. Those guys and gals rose above the industry's worst problems, and it showed. They covered stories that other sites were too terrified to cover because of advertisers. AOL, the corporation that provides their budget, surely was not going to let them get away with that forever.
And yes, they were very good to us. They gave us more attention than any other news site, period, before and after the shutdown. The overwhelming majority of that attention was positive. There were some people who didn't bother to read the positive, and then tore into them for the occasional negative opinion or inconvenient fact. If those people truly want to live in a world where the profession cannot be honest, where it bows to its almighty advertisers and corporate overlords, well today they are one step closer.
I hope Massively's team stays together and strikes out on their own. I know, don't we always hope for that scenario, but it looks like they are seriously kicking the idea around.
