"What shall we use to fill the empty Spaces where we used to talk?
How shall I fill the final places?
How shall I complete the wall?"

 -- "Empty Spaces," Pink Floyd, from The Wall

The eviction notices are going out on another blogging platform operated by a dot-com giant.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is giving Windows Live Spaces users six months to gather up their belongings and migrate to WordPress. The process is relatively seamless, but Spaces will be decommissioned at that point, so its 30 million active -- and more than likely inactive -- bloggers will be zapped if they don't complete the virtual trek elsewhere.

By now, consumers should know better. They can't trust an online juggernaut as anything more than a free email provider. This isn't the first time that an Internet heavyweight has misled visitors into investing time and effort in a platform for self-expression that ultimately gets shuttered. Those who helped build up Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO) Mash, 360, and GeoCities had to helplessly watch them all meet the wrecking ball. AOL (NYSE: AOL) killed its GeoCities-esque member pages, even for paying subscribers.

Don't go thinking that the mighty Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is immune. It has wooed the unsuspecting into creating Lively avatars or begin mobile social networking through Dodgeball, only to pull the "bait and off-switch" prank on its community.

There's always a reason. The dot-com darlings want to focus elsewhere. They want to deploy their resources in new and exciting ventures (that ultimately get canned as well). However, it's always the naive loyalist who gets bamboozled.

Is there any doubt that a big reason why all of these companies have faltered in their attempts to take on Facebook and Twitter to gain Web 2.0 relevance is that cybersurfers have had enough online heartbreak?

Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Ping is getting a lot of heat as a heavily commercialized social music appendage to iTunes these days, but Apple is better off trying to fix it than to take it down entirely. Consumers keep score, long after the game has been played.

Microsoft didn't have to fumble the Spaces handoff, though I'll give it credit for at least providing an exit strategy. In an ideal world, why didn't Microsoft just buy WordPress?

One of Google's rare keepers is Blogger.com. It has no intentions of shutting down its popular blogging platform. By owning Blogger and hosting Blogspot pages, Google is able to raise the stakes, by allowing folks there to monetize their rants and raves through its AdSense revenue-sharing program. Wouldn't it have been better for Microsoft to keep Spaces and add WordPress -- and then use both to encourage active participation of its nascent AdSense knockoff?

I don't know why Web-based behemoths make so many stupid mistakes -- nor why battered consumers continue to flock to them anyway.

What do you think of Microsoft axing Spaces? Share your tips in the comment box below.