Dead Pool Watch

H

Heroku

Hosting

Critical

Once the default for deploying apps, Heroku has been in steady decline since Salesforce acquired it.

• Nov 2022 Eliminated all free tiers - free dynos, free Postgres, free Redis
• 2023-2024 Minimal product innovation under Salesforce ownership
• 2024-2025 Mass developer migration to Railway, Render, and Fly.io

P

PlanetScale

Database

Warning

The serverless MySQL platform that made waves, then alienated its community by killing the free tier.

• Apr 2024 Eliminated free tier entirely, pricing increased significantly
• 2024 Community backlash, developers migrating to Neon and Supabase
• 2025 Unclear product direction compared to Neon's rapid feature development

A

Atom Editor

Dev Tools

Critical

GitHub's text editor that lost the war to VS Code. Archived and no longer maintained.

• 2019-2021 Declining usage as VS Code gained market dominance
• Jun 2022 GitHub announced sunsetting Atom
• Dec 2022 Officially archived, all repositories read-only

W

Wunderlist

Productivity

Critical

The beloved to-do app Microsoft acquired and systematically replaced with Microsoft To Do.

• 2015 Acquired by Microsoft for $100-200M
• 2017-2019 Features gradually ported to Microsoft To Do
• May 2020 Permanently shut down, all users migrated

L

Loom

Video

Watch

Atlassian's $975M acquisition raised questions about Loom's future as an independent product.

• Oct 2023 Acquired by Atlassian for $975M
• 2024 Free plan reduced from 25 to 25 videos (5min limit added)
• 2025 Increasing integration into Atlassian ecosystem, standalone value uncertain

M

Medium

Publishing

Warning

The once-dominant publishing platform struggling with a paywall strategy that frustrates both writers and readers.

• 2019-2023 Frequent paywall strategy changes alienating creators
• 2023-2024 Top writers migrating to Substack, Ghost, and Beehiiv
• 2025 Declining traffic, reduced discoverability for free content

E

Evernote

Productivity

Warning

Once the gold standard for note-taking, now hollowed out after acquisition and mass layoffs.

• Jan 2023 Acquired by Bending Spoons, most US employees laid off
• 2023-2024 Features removed, pricing increased, legacy users frustrated
• 2025 User base shrinking as Notion and Obsidian dominate

The audio app that defined pandemic-era hype, then collapsed when the world reopened.

• Feb 2021 Peak hype, $4B valuation, invite-only exclusivity
• 2022 Opened to everyone, but users had already left for Twitter Spaces
• Oct 2023 Laid off over 50% of staff, pivoted to messaging

G

Google Domains

Domains

Critical

Google sold its entire domain registrar business to Squarespace, forcing millions of domain migrations.

• Jun 2023 Google announced sale of Google Domains to Squarespace
• Sep 2023 All domains transferred to Squarespace management
• 2024 Pricing changes as Squarespace adjusts rates

X

Adobe XD

Design

Critical

Adobe's Figma competitor that was quietly killed after the failed Figma acquisition.

• Sep 2022 Adobe announced $20B Figma acquisition (later blocked)
• 2023 Adobe XD development effectively paused
• 2024 No longer available for new users, existing users pushed to Figma

S

Skype

Communication

Critical

Microsoft's legacy communication platform finally being put to rest after years of neglect.

• 2017-2023 Steady decline as Teams, Zoom, and Meet took over
• 2024 Microsoft announced Skype shutdown
• May 2025 Official end of life, all users migrated to Teams

The cautionary tale. Facebook acquired Parse, then shut it down, stranding thousands of apps.

• Apr 2013 Acquired by Facebook
• Jan 2016 Facebook announced Parse would shut down
• Jan 2017 Parse servers permanently shut down