Fantastic blog post from Andy Baio about the fall of Ello. I would poke in on it every once in a while but didn’t realize it was completely offline now. Andy writes:

I was worried that, by taking outside funding, Ello’s values were no longer fully-aligned with the community: they were aligned with their investors. In time, given more money and more pressure, they would be inclined to do something the community, or even the original founders, didn’t want to do.

There are rarely any shortcuts. Steady growth and proven business models are the best path to sustainability.