While there are many legitimate reasons for jailbreaking your iPhone, one of the more popular things to do with a jailbroken device was install pirated apps on it.  And for pirated iOS apps, there was no better place to go than Hackulous, the community and website behind the Installous app. Unfortunately for users of Installous, Hackulous has announced an abrupt shutdown of the website and its apps.

We are very sad to announce that Hackulous is shutting down. After many years, our community has become stagnant and our forums are a bit of a ghost town. It has become difficult to keep them online and well-moderated, despite the devotion of our staff. We’re incredibly thankful for the support we’ve had over the years and hope that new, greater communities blossom out of our absence.

With lots of love,
Hackulous Team

Despite citing a “stagnant” community and forum that resembles a “ghost town” as reasons for the shutdown, many have speculated that the shutdown may have had more to do with the slowdown of jailbreak updates for new versions of iOS. Currently, iOS 6 remains as a tethered jailbreak and a jailbreak for the iPhone 5 is non-existent.

Most of the features that people used to jailbreak their device for are now official features of iOS, minimizing its usefulness. More importantly, the piracy that this shutdown would stop will do more good than harm in the long run — I’m sure developers would agree.

[via iDB, image via Wapster]