Maybe what he was selling would be useful to you? If I want to make money, and I want to do it by selling a product I thought made a positive difference to people, would it matter if I also built the company for an acquisition exit as well?
The OP suggested 1 billion rational answers. Or 35 million. Or one of those values divided by whatever amount of money it'd take for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life.
It's easy to condemn people for being realistic about their reaction to such a sum of money. Perhaps your scruples would prevent you from taking a massive payment to leave behind something you've created, but I think it's more likely you're trying to take a moral high ground that's not grounded in reality.
Not condemning anyone for wanting to sell, simply asking why would I choose to use any product this guy makes when he tells me he'd be willing to "delete all user accounts and data and shut down the entire service forever" if that were a condition of sale. How is that in my best interests as a product user?
Lets make it a real life situation: delete all the accounts (in 14 days) and shut down the site forever. Plenty of companies do this.
Do you still feel the same way?
Human nature is weird in a way, we feel better about someone telling us they will note sell a service, even if untrue, than someone coming out and being honest about it.
It is a rational decision by the founder, however grandparent asked from a users perspective. Not only do you have to factor in switching costs but also likely hood of needing to switch.
I think you're missing the question. A billion or multimillion exit for a site operator is not a reason to use that site, which is what GP was asking about.
