User:Tonisant/Why Open Systems Matter

One of the things that I try to point out when asked why we shouldn't just use Facebook or YouTube instead of the M3P open system for storing text, images, audio, video etc. is that those closed systems are run by commercial entities (a)with different goals than ours, and (b) who will close down one day sooner or later and potentially leave all our content without a home.

Check out the following for some factual basis to this arguments:

• RIP Google Video: Download Your Videos by May 13 or They’re Gone Forever - Mashable, 16 April 2011

• Friendster to Erase Early Posts and Old Photos - Jenna Wortham, New York Times, 26 April 2011

• Google Puts the Hammer Down on Three More Services - Gizmodo, 20 January 2012

• The End of Google Reader Send Internet Into an Uproar - New York Times, 14 March 2013

• Google Reader lived on borrowed time: creator Chris Wetherell reflects GigaOm, 13 March 2013

• Powering Down Google Reader - Official Google Reader Blog, 13 March 2013

And sometimes you can see it coming ahead of time too:

• YouTube Founders Buy Delicious - The Guardian, 27 April 2011

• Facebook's share of UK social networking declines - The Telegraph, 11 January 2012

• Facebook Will Disappear in 5 to 8 Years - Cadie Thompson, CNBC.com, 4 June 2012

• A hail and farewell to AltaVista - CNET.com, 28 June 2013

See also

• Open access policy adopted - Princeton University

• A Threat to Open Access: the Research Works Act

• What Happens When Data Disappears? - The Dilemma of Being a Cyborg by Carina Chocano, New York Times, 27 January 2012

• Five Ways The Open Web Can Transform Higher Education by Cathy N. Davidson, 4 December 2011

• An Open Letter to Academic Publishers About Open Access by Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 April 2012

• How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet - Gizmondo, 15 May 2012

• Github has great dreams for open source - NYTimes Blog, 28 December 2012