I have the same reaction. It seems that, far too often, the first "big" coverage a neat service gets (if it's missed by TechCrunch or a well-ranked post on HN) is its purchase and subsequent closing. Obviously these businesses are valuable to someone, and making money is probably the end-goal of everyone involved, but it seems like customers are an afterthought when considering a sale. Should cloud-based services from companies without a stock market symbol start to be considered more "performance résumés" for the founders and less "stable options" for customers?

>"What moved me to post this: the other day folks here were discussing what hinders cloud service adoption. IMO, stuff like this does the most damage."

I completely agree. Speaking for myself, stories like this cause me to pause even more before joining, relying on, trusting, and eventually paying for any web based service.