

The Fridge (YC S10) Is Going Dark - zach
http://zachbaker.com/time-to-clean-out-the-fridge

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rdl
I'd never even heard of this company, but IMO they really should provide a
much longer wind-down period.

Similarly to Ron Conway's "if you have to shut down your company, that's fine,
but do it properly -- pay your bills, pay your employees in full, do it in an
orderly fashion -- if you do, I'll invest in you again, otherwise I won't."

There should be a "responsible startup code of practice" for winding down
operations where customers might depend on it. Especially in the summer, when
people could be on vacation, providing 3-6mo of notice for a shutdown would be
good. Exceptions if it is really arterial bleeding of cash, or some legal
problems which expose you to ongoing civil or criminal liability, but if it's
just the cost of a few EC2 instances, there is no excuse for not keeping it
running until users have all comfortably migrated away. Otherwise, people will
be less likely to trust cloud services in the future, which pisses in the pool
for everyone.

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shii
And you know they haven't already done this because...?

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e1ven
The date on this post is July 15th, and the email says they're shutting down
on the 19th. Giving customers 4 days notice is less than ideal.

~~~
rednaught
And a weekend at that.

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austinchang
Sorry everyone for the sudden notice. This has been wrecking us for some time
and we went back and forth about how to handle this timeframe. Having a long
graceful transition period for our users would have been great but for reasons
that we could not control Fridge as it currently stands had to be shut down
quickly. Unfortunately there are tough decisions (especially in startups) to
make and tougher consequences to live with even if they come with a silver
lining at the end.

We remain dedicated to building great products and hopefully things will
become more clear after the dust settles.

Again, sorry for the sudden notice...

~~~
rdl
There are definitely legitimate reasons for doing this quickly, and having the
policy in place to delete sensitive customer data (vs. turn it over to other
companies) is definitely a good thing (and a lot better than a lot of
companies in the past).

Probably the best time to think about continuity for users is when the service
has just been set up. I think it matters a lot more for things like Geocities,
Vox, etc. than for a more realtime communications service.

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jamesbkel
I never really used the service, so it's not a big deal for me, but the email
subject could also have been a bit more descriptive than "Fridge Updates and
Save your Data!".

I saw it about 30min ago and glossed over it since I interpreted that as
"Fridge updates w/ new features, one of which is called 'Save Your Data!'".

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revorad
I got the email too. This is the strangest product shutting down
(non)-announcement I've seen from a startup. I think most startups could do
with a crash course in how to communicate with their users.

Given all that's been written about the importance of user feedback, most
founders are very responsive now when they start - what with stalking visitors
with Olark accounts, replying to emails and tweets within seconds, answering
questions on social news sites. All is great when they want to benefit from
the users' comments. But as soon as that's no longer the case, they treat
users like a commodity and don't seem to care about telling them what's going
on or what to expect next.

It doesn't bode well for their future projects.

~~~
localhost3000
i especially enjoy when shutdown notices are written to sound as though they
are delivering really great and exciting news - "we've decided to shut down
the website you've invested time in, but it's _your lucky day_ because our
team of ninjas is super stoked about a new big idea we're working on. It's so
exciting! we can't wait to tell you about it! We can't tell you now. But there
are more updates to come soon!! Promise!! :) :) :) !!!" which I always take as
code for "our product didn't work. we're out of money. we're now sitting
around depressed trying to think of a new website to build. you'll probably
never hear from us again."

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dlevine
It seems likely that they were talent acquired by one of the big tech
companies. I have seen similar things in the past (etacts sent a cryptic
message like this when salesforce bought them).

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vladd
Site: <http://www.frid.ge/>

TechCrunch on them in 2010: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/23/the-fridge-
facebook-sharing...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/23/the-fridge-facebook-
sharing/)

~~~
zokiboy
It is interesting how they provided the identical functionality as new
Facebook Groups - they ripped-off Facebook's interface, then Facebook ripped-
off their feature. It seems they were also inspired by Paul Adams' circles. I
simply don't like that approach as anybody from the group can invite new
people and anybody can add me to a group without my approval. Google circles
will win.

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rdl
I'm a little confused because none of their website, twitter, or blog says
anything about this.

~~~
dangrossman
It does if you click the "Get Started Now" button.

~~~
cubicle67
not really. reads more like they're working on some stuff, but back shortly.
quote:

 _Thanks for checking out Fridge! Fridge is going through some major changes
and at this time not accepting new user registration._

 _If you already have an account you can login._

 _Check back later for more details!_

~~~
citricsquid
they're pivoting!

~~~
rorschachh
perhaps fridge will go into stasis and come back in freak super-human form,
complete with anime-style avatars with bulbous heads which bop along as you
post. :P

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zipdog
Its a shame to see the company go, but this email is another reminder of the
danger of trusting your data to a company. A four day wind-down period after
which user data is deleted is very short.

It especially odd as their Privacy Policy doesn't seem to specify that this is
required. In fact, the Privacy Policy actually states that personal data may
be preserved beyond the timeframe a user would expect.

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jgilliam
Path is also doing really poorly. Another site based on sharing information
privately with a smaller group of people. Has anyone shown traction with a
product that is explicitly anti-viral?

~~~
spullara
Sounds like email, IM and SMS. All fairly successful product categories. The
problem is to make sure your private sharing product is better than them to
succeed.

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NTH
FYI looks like they weren't going out of business, they were getting acquire
by Google: [http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-
Collaboration/Google-...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-
Collaboration/Google-Buys-Fridge-to-Make-Google-Circles-Cooler-889457/)

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fortybillion
Fans of The Fridge might want to consider Minigroup (<https://minigroup.com>).
It's less about the social and more about communication and collaboration, but
we share their idea of private, defined groups.

We'd love to have you :)

