EP team excuses. EVERY PROBLEM HAS A SOLUTION WITHIN THE EP COMUNITY UPDATE 2: In case you didn't read everything there's a part a link in the notice that says "please continue reading here" that provides some explanation from EP team. "We created EP to provide a safe, private place online to share the experiences that mattered most, and to deliver it fairly and reliably to every user, however and wherever they were comfortable. Doing good for the world was not a side effect, it was the goal. Over the last decade, while social media has evolved from Blogger to Snapchat, and become increasingly focused on pictures, short text, and individual popularity, EP remained focused on anonymous, long-form text stories from everyday people who were recognized for their experiences above all else. From day one, privacy of our users has been paramount , and we have never allowed names, phone numbers, or addresses. This approach bucked every trend, and challenged our ability to build an advertising-based business, but we passionately believe it provided the foundation for some of the most meaningful relationships imaginable. And you are proof that we were right! But there is no denying that the way people expect to use social media today is markedly different than it once was, and as the primary use has moved from web to mobile, our hallmark attributes like long-form stories are not aligned. But, there are deeper, and more troubling trends than formats. Online anonymity, a core part of EP, is being challenged like never before. Governments and their agencies are aggressively attacking the foundations of internet privacy with a deluge of information requests, subpoenas, and warrants. We, of course, always support proper law enforcement efforts, but the well-documented potential for even abuse, even if unintentional, is enormous, and growing. At the same time, scores of new laws require compliance with intricate, sometimes contradictory, data privacy regulations for each country, territory, and even state. For example, today there are nearly 30 different agencies that can decide whether sending data, for example, a private message from your inbox, between Europe and the US is "proper." Finally, the sophistication of "bad apples," as few as they thankfully are, has increased dramatically. They are better able to cover their tracks and evade user bans by using mobile and encryption networks, and they use information to exploit the trust of others through social engineering. These advances, of course, relate to the first point about increasing government information gathering, in an ever escalating game of cat and mouse. None of these are insurmountable problems, but they require immense resources to address reliably, effectively, and safely at scale. Those are outside the reach of all but a tiny handful of massive companies like Facebook and Google. So it is with these themes in mind that we have come to the conclusion that it is better to freeze what we have today, instead of letting it erode, and affect our ability to deliver value, safety, and to respect our users' trust and expectations." We must stand unite and fight against these things. Everything has a solution. It just sounds like a lame excuse. First excuse they find to close EP is: "This approach bucked every trend, and challenged our ability to build an advertising-based business, but we passionately believe it provided the foundation for some of the most meaningful relationships imaginable." Money basically. EP needs money to maintain itself. We as a community have no problem whatsoever donating to keep it open. Even crowd-funding campaigns can be established. Just say how much you need for 1 year and I'm sure we will donate enough to keep it open for centuries. EP members have all kinds of financial situations and some might not be able to donate much but some are rich and can donate a lot. Plus there's tons of others solutions for revenue. In millions of users we are certainly sure that this is not a problem. So first problem is solved. Second problem they say it's because of keeping privacy: "Governments and their agencies are aggressively attacking the foundations of internet privacy with a deluge of information requests, subpoenas, and warrants. We, of course, always support proper law enforcement efforts, but the well-documented potential for even abuse, even if unintentional, is enormous, and growing." That's very easily solved. Servers and/or data can be relocated to countries that respect human rights and privacy and that forbid law enforcement to violate privacy of internet users. This is a non issue. It CAN be fixed. Third and last problem they find: "Finally, the sophistication of "bad apples," as few as they thankfully are, has increased dramatically. They are better able to cover their tracks and evade user bans by using mobile and encryption networks, and they use information to exploit the trust of others through social engineering" This is just a lame excuse. EP throughout times has been attacked by bots and "bad apples" and that has done very little disruption to EP itself. It sounds like another excuse. What if the first two are solved, would you want it to close? But even this issue can be solved. There's tons of ways to control "bad apples" and again with millions of users, some of them highly competent coders and security analysis I'm sure that solutions can be found to prevent and minimize bad apples. Again this is not an issue and can be easily solved. So for all this we urge the EP team to reconsider and to respect it's members. We the community disagree whatsoever with the closing and will fight against it by any means necessary. If you has a team don't want to continue then just hand over the keys to the community. Someone will do all the work and keep EP open faithful to all the values. If you don't want to give it away we will buy it. We have technological and financial support to do so. Please share.