I don't consider it unfortunate. It's the marketplace in action. The owner of the site is, (as you probably know since you allude to his frequent complaints on his website about not having any money), an unpleasant person who has attacked many people over the years, including a lot of former supporters of his site.
A lot of people don't want to give guys like him money, especially when most of the website's value was created by the thousands of bike tourists who put their journals there, not the creator of the website itself.
If he can't make a living from his website, he should get a job like the rest of us.
Thanks for your interesting comment. I'm a happy customer of ridewithgps, and run a small B2B SaaS, so I love hearing details like this.
One comment: I hope you don't start emphasizing the "social media" aspects, like Strava has done, to their detriment, in my opinion. That's what prompted me to finally delete my Strava account (after uploading my thousands of activities to ridewithgps.)
It's for serious cyclists, for whom $10 a month is barely noticeable, considering how much you can spend on the bicycling hobby. For example, I do bicycle touring, weeks-long or months-long trips every year, and the RideWithGps route planner/navigation tools are extremely useful when riding thousands of miles by yourself in places you aren't familiar with.
A lot of people don't want to give guys like him money, especially when most of the website's value was created by the thousands of bike tourists who put their journals there, not the creator of the website itself.
If he can't make a living from his website, he should get a job like the rest of us.