IFriends Is Closing Down After 20 Years

[EtherealMOD]

I shouldn't be shocked but yet I am. IFriends after being in the cammodel industry for 20 years is closing down. They were the first official camsite, I think? I always forget if it was them or cams.com? Anyways they've posted a long farewell on the website. https://www.ifriends.net/thankyou

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the creation of the iFriends platform.

The world's first "sharing economy" internet platform, iFriends was also among the world's first many-to-many/peer-to-peer "Friends Network" social-networking services. 15 years before the emergence of products like Uber, Lyft and AirBnb -- and more than 6 years before FaceBook -- millions of iFriends users were already sharing their webcams and profile pages/fan clubs, in a way that connected people & enriched lives.

For 20 exciting years, more than 100,000 "video chathosts", 10,000 marketing partners and other stakeholders have grown with us, realizing financial goals, raising families, paying off mortgages & car loans, putting children through college, and more.

We are proud of what we have all accomplished, working together. From chathosts to affiliates . . . From more than 10 million registered members to the hardworking people behind iFriends itself . . . we have brought smiles, success & friendship into each other's lives. (It was no accident that the name we chose for our service – from the very beginning and before the first line of software code was written in the summer of 1998 – was, simply, "iFriends")

But much can change in 20 years. In 2018 alone, the FCC-mandated demise of "net neutrality", new legislative developments out of Washington DC, and certain costly patent litigation efforts have further transformed the business landscape in which we operate.

So, it is with some regret – but also with an enormous sense of pride and gratitude in what we have all achieved together – that we elect to use this 20-year anniversary milestone as a natural and organic moment to discontinue the platform, and to express our gratitude to you for twenty years of fellowship, support and for being our "iFriends". As we wind down the service in an orderly and responsible manner, it is at this harmonious juncture that we say to our iFriends, "we are hereby closed for business."

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"
– Seneca the Younger (4 BC – 65 AD), Stoic Philosopher, Ancient Rome

[Cutie101]

This brought back some ugly memories and it was the event that taught me to NEVER EVER AGAIN put my eggs in one basket and be loyal to one single platform. EVER.
I oured my soul into that site for years, I was a high earning model there. It was a regular working day, when I turned on the PC and clicked on the website, to start streaming. I had this message posted, site gone, all gone. That was it. No prior announcements, nothing. They simply shit on the models. We're closed, bye.

It makes me laugh how AVNStars creators were crying on twitter about being unfair that they had one month to move their shit on other platforms, lol. I had NOTHING, just some members emails list, that mostly weren't using, so I lost many members back then. I had to start from scratch on other sites.

This should be a pinned thread, to never be loyal to a platform, unless they pay extra % or something that guarantees you, that if shit hits the fan, you have a safety net.