I knew from the get-go their model was not sustainable. They flashed that money to build an arsenal of writers they could weed through and, in conjunction, millions of new readers. Writers went all in, hyping NB like crazy, thus building their user base. I don't blame them for going "local." It's more of a niche and there's a great market for it. We need more local stories written by real people. Expect that base to go away if you can't maintain a certain status. For me, I never got credit/paid for the 30k+ visitors two of my stories earned (yes, I had solid proof). So I jumped out 6 weeks in. To any platform, the readers a writer gets aren't worth much if they don't join the network and continue reading.