Ask HN: My startup depends on third-party data. They want to cut off my access
I have an online service that I started about 2 years ago. The service scrapes publicly-available data primarily from a single data source, hosted by a multi-billion-dollar company, and presents it in a way that end users prefer, and users pay me an annual subscription fee for that access.<p>I&#x27;ve heard that the data source is planning to &quot;shut down&quot; my service and all copycat services. It&#x27;s not clear how they intend to do that. If they use a technical approach, we may be able to circumvent, but it&#x27;d probably be difficult to dodge a legal request though technically we are not doing anything strictly illegal (no plausible chance against their lawyers). It&#x27;s not feasible to get this data from any other source. If they shut us down, we will have to stop this service.<p>My preferred resolution to this would be to get this company that provides the data to acquire us, integrate the tech as a first-party solution, convert&#x2F;refund our members, and let us be useful in stopping the copycat services.<p>I&#x27;m burnt out on the startup and would LOVE to collect a substantial chunk of money for it and move on (this has been a side project and I&#x27;ve been employed full-time the entire time). This is most likely a long shot, but it&#x27;d be the best outcome for me and I think it provides good value to the source. How can I convince M&amp;A that the best method to get rid of me and my competitors is to buy me out and allow me to create the framework that will neuter other competitors?<p>I understood the problems of doing a startup that&#x27;s dependent on a third-party before I started; it was never really intended to be <i>just</i> that, always thought we would quickly add some other stuff, but here we are with about 700 annual subscribers and this is still our primary product.<p>Any take on how I can successfully resolve this situation without financial or legal ruin would be helpful.