Your understanding of the situation is on target, and in fact was described sometime back on this (or the Welcome) thread. The majority of assets of InfoSpace did indeed remain with InfoSpace. This was an asset purchase, not the purchase of a business entity. Further, this business did not benefit one iota from monies paid to the former business entity.
In either event, it would be moot. There was never a promise of lifetime access too all features available "then" and features subsequently added. Had there been, there would not have been an acquisition and clicking on SI today would undoubtedly yield a "Site Not Found" message. Alternatively, the purchaser (iHub) could simply have dome something like preserving the historical messages, closed down new posting to SI and provided whatever accommodations it saw fit, if any, in its site to former SI members, and that would be that.
Instead, a new, faster, working and in many ways enhanced platform has been provided, former lifetime and grandfathered users are provided with substantially the same featureset they previously had and the means to access an extended features for a nominal annual fee. Under the old owners, SI was frozen and the platform was on the verge of total failure. Broken features (like basic search) have been fixed, and some new features have been added into the basic featureset at no additional charge. And, the effort to refine and add new functonality, both basic and premium, continues daily.
New lifetime accounts are on the same footing as old lifetime accounts. They too have to pay for the extended features, and failing to renew at expiration will result in them having the same featureset as old lifetime and grandfathered users.
There's no meat in the beef, as it were. |
