"they won't let the algorithm be sold and without it, it's an empty deal" I don't see how that's a problem. Obviously there's a great deal of knowledge about what "the algorithm" does across the userbase; just get users to raise tickets about what they miss and others to upvote them, then knock them off one by one. There's nothing magic about "users who liked post A also liked post B" or "company X paid us $1000000000000 so here's post C whether you like it or not". It might even end up being better than the original.