A few reasons!

  * More than anything, I think it's good for things to end! I figured interest in the site would die off over time (and it started to), and I thought it was better to close things out providing a special experience for the people that used it than to keep it up to get a few more users
  * Costs started adding up; donations stopped matching them. I coulda figured out how to lower my costs but I wasn't excited about it.
  * While the site was up I felt an obligation to make sure someone hadn't found some trivial workaround to deface the thing and I didn't want to do that anymore.

I'm very pro ephemeral stuff! So I feel good about the decision. But it's a good question.

"More than anything, I think it's good for things to end"

You know who else said this (in spirit)? Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes.

There are few other people I'd be proud to be in the company of :-).

also R.E.M.

I enthusiastically agree - and really all that matters is that you feel good about it. As a software engineer who's built (and shut down) many projects, I have always been envious of art forms in which the artist gets to create a piece of work and then "finish" it. We are often at the mercy of perpetual maintenance.

Well done and nice execution.

I don't think I've ever officially shut anything down. Endings are too sad for me.

Just because you've never officially shut anything down, things have still ended. May as well throw a party.

My parents put it as “it’s best to quit while you’re having fun”. Took me years to appreciate it. I’ve passed it on to my kids. They’re finally starting to get it.

I wish they did that with The Simpsons lol