As do I. James seems like a really cool person, but I feel like he's dishonest sometimes. The flimsy excuses for not sharing the massive profits with employees in the past and this case where they could easily require simple credit card verification to get the same effect. Very weird behavior.

> "The flimsy excuses for not sharing the massive profits with employees in the past ... "

Kind of a socialist sentiment, doncha think?

From what I know of the whole deal, these two dudes built the core of the business in 7-30 days, and layered in the payment/dating stuff later on. (pretty obvious/inevitable)

No one accuses Bill Gates of being socialist and he made more of his employees millionaires by sharing than almost anyone in business history.

He is obviously lying. This is not even a debatable point.

It's called spin. A representative of the business is giving a half-credible excuse for reverting to a process that will be unpopular but that will also generate more revenue. Politicians don't change their stances on abortion because of changes of heart...they do it because it will net more votes

For whatever reason it's taboo for a press release to say "we're taking this course of action because it's more profitable", unless you're talking to stockholders and not users, because 1. all business actions are taken with profitability, short term or long, in mind, so it goes without saying 2. you would piss off your users who care only what you give to them and rarely at all whether you're making money or not

credit card verification?

Sounds like a porn site. That's a terribly unmarketable idea.