Dead tech, by the numbers

Computed live from 20 documented projects. Cite freely with a link (CC BY 4.0).

Shutdowns per year

Average lifespan by category

CategoryProjectsAverage lifespan
Messengers 4 21.0 years
Media Players 1 16.7 years
Web Technologies 3 15.9 years
Web Browsers 1 13.2 years
Social Networks 4 9.9 years
Operating Systems 1 9.1 years
File Sharing 3 7.8 years
Photo & Video 1 4.0 years

Who killed the most projects

Owner at the time of shutdown.

  1. Google 3 projects
  2. Verizon (Oath) 2 projects
  3. Microsoft 2 projects
  4. Yahoo 1 project
  5. Twitter 1 project
  6. Sharman Networks 1 project
  7. Roxio 1 project
  8. MOL Global 1 project
  9. Lime Group 1 project
  10. Digital Sky Technologies / Mail.ru Group / VK 1 project

Causes of death

Lost users to competition 13 Regulatory or legal action 3 Company pivoted 2 Technology became obsolete 1 Acquired and shut down 1

Shortest lives

  1. Napster 2.1 yrs
  2. Vine 4.0 yrs
  3. Digg 7.7 yrs
  4. Google Reader 7.7 yrs
  5. Google+ 7.8 yrs

Longest lives

  1. ICQ 27.6 yrs
  2. Adobe Flash 25.0 yrs
  3. AIM 20.6 yrs
  4. Yahoo Messenger 20.4 yrs
  5. Winamp 16.7 yrs

Acquisition to shutdown

On average, an acquired project in this database survived 6.5 years after its last acquisition (n=11).