Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
I agree, but LibraryThing has a fee membership (lifetime) and I don't think it's working out all that well. They would have been able to at least guess at which idea was more lucrative. And Amazon has deep pockets.
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This is an issue that comes up a lot with free services (see also: Google Reader). If you aren't paying for a service, you aren't the customer. You are the product that is sold to whoever is actually paying the bills, and the company's loyalty to you is, at best, indirect.
Companies like this are always at risk of either changing their services to the benefit of advertisers and detriment of users, or else of being sold to someone who will pay.