This is an object lesson for those assuming free online is free forever. GeoCities once offered anyone the opportunity to build a web site. I probably recommended this as an option for educators wanting to get into web site development.
The lessons:
- You can’t trust free
- Backup
- Nothing is forever
It surprised me to learn that Geocities was a Yahoo! product. The article seemed to indicate Yahoo was simply prioritizing and those of us with significant investments in other Yahoo! services (e.g., Flickr) should not be overly concerned. The article also indicated that the shut down was predictable and people would have had an opportunity to backup and move their content.