Providing a webservice free of charge is work intensive and it costs money. We all know that, but users sometimes forget that behind every website there's a frustrated administrator, a large bandwidth bill and tired hardware. Running a busy, public website requires either money to hire a competent administrator or security and systems knowledge - otherwise it'll be hacked before you can say "google ads".

Why do this at all then? People do it for various reason.. exposure, name recognition, often just the satisfaction of providing a service that others find effective and desirable - even if only because it's free (as in beer).

So now that we covered it's grueling, thankless work, let's cover the other side. Responsibility.

As soon as you have at least one regular user that depends on your service, you are no longer the only person affected by the site. Yes, you still own it, yes, it's still yours and yours alone to do with what you please, but now you have an ethical obligation to the users. Most community websites survive based on content supplied by users. That makes users a vital part of the website, after all, who would visit an empty site? Face it, an Internet site without traffic is like a postman without mail. Sad, lonely and largely useless.

Things happen, sometimes unexpectedly, that may require you to stop providing the free service to your users. We all understand that free to us does not mean someone else isn't paying for it and that sometime maybe that person will no longer wish to do so. That's fine and dandy, Here are a few ethical and pain-free (well, relatively) ways to discontinue the free service with as little discomfort to the users as possible. After all, just because they took advantage of a free service it does not mean they don't deserve a notice and a chance to find a replacement.

• An announcement ahead of time stating the service will be discontinued is vital. We all know things happen, but nobody wakes up at 7am and decides to pull the plug on a busy site before their first cup of coffee. There's a period of time before a decision is reached. The users deserve to know the service is going away - this is particularly important if the website contains content they may wish to retain.
• Offer to transfer the ownership of the website to someone who has the resources to continue the free service. This would, of course, have to be done with a long list of terms to prevent a bad guy, or worse, a large corporation taking over the site just for the user base.
• Ask the users for help before things become dire. This one may even help you keep the site afloat after all! It's amazing how many technically competent people are willing to work for free just to keep their favorite site going. Many users of free services are very willing to donate money to prevent discontinuation as well. Taking advantage of a free service does not make anyone a free-loader.
• If all else fails - offer the contents of the site to volunteers to be hosted on mirror servers. Not next month, not even in two weeks but the day the power light goes off on the server.

The worst thing you could possibly do is just turn the site off without a warning. Not because of bad press, but because the users depended on it.