I think it's worse than that. It does stick. They actually hate it when it sticks, because that is when it becomes a career sink. That is, too important to the

I think it's worse than that. It does stick. They actually hate it when it sticks, because that is when it becomes a career sink. That is, too important to the business for people to leave it behind but not important enough that maintaining it is promotion worthy. I strongly suspect that the reason so many products get shut down is not to do with financials or the product's actual usage and adoption, but because the there's a valley of death in which association with these products during this phase of their lifecycle is a negative career move within Google. So most likely really good engineers flee these products because they might become successful more than because they are failures / failing.