Burned twice in the same month, I've suddenly developed mistrust for software as a service. If I cannot load the software on a machine that I control, I'm going to think twice before I decide to use it.
It started with Google Reader. I've used this as my primary method for reading RSS and Atom feeds for years. I've linked it up with Yahoo Pipes and IfThisThenThat to make a wonderfully tailored experience for myself. Each morning when I sit down to my computer, I have a news feed that has automatically filtered out the crap and shows me only that which has a high probability of being interesting.
Poof, it ends. Well, that should be a lesson to me about using free services. If I'm not paying for it, what should I expect? But wait, paying for a service doesn't seem to help as another service that I use extensively is going to vanish.
TinkerCad is 3D modeling done on the Web. It's brilliant. Rather, it was brilliant. They've just announced that as of April 30, they're done. The brilliance vanishes leaving me in the dark. I spent weeks honing my skills on this Web application and I've gotten very good at it. I have a Makerbot Replicator 2 and I use it extensively. TinkerCad was my primary means of making models. With the announcement of the end of TinkerCad, all my effort to learn it has gone "poof".
I will not replace these two services with services from someone else. I will choose to not use any new product from either Google or the people behind TinkerCad unless I can download and run the software on my own hardware. You burn me, I will not extend my trust again.
I'm examining all the services that I use and assessing the feasibility of dropping them before they drop me. I cannot see how any company could attain my trust for their service software offerings. At least these were personal projects. If I ran a company, I certainly wouldn't trust my revenue stream to any software as service offering without an explicit contract that guaranteed service availability for a predetermined amount of time.
Nope, I'm not interested in a service that can be taken away at any random time.