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Ask HN: Any examples of hosted software failing do to attempts at saving costs?
With all the discussion around Twitter layoffs and the concern about site stability, are there any examples of a large, hosted software system completely failing and shutting down in a disorderly fashion do to cost saving measures gone wrong?
- iwanttocomment 4y agoOf course. In the news today, there's FTX (we won't even talk about something like Mt. Gox). https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/11/ftx-files-for-bankruptcy-protections-in-us/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/11/ftx-files-for-ban... Recently, Insteon's entire IoT software platform suddenly and unexpectedly shut down when the company failed. https://www.iotm2mcouncil.org/iot-library/news/iot-newsdesk/insteon-shuts-down-leaving-smart-home-users-stranded/ https://www.iotm2mcouncil.org/iot-library/news/iot-newsdesk/... You may remember streaming video service Quibi suddenly capsizing and disappearing a couple of years ago. https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21528404/quibi-shut-down-cost-subscribers-content-tv-movies-katzenberg-whitman-tiktok-netflix https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21528404/quibi-shut-down... It may be pushing the definition of a hosted software system, but who could forget MoviePass? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoviePass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoviePass A particularly weird one was Murfie, where you sent them your physical CDs to rip and stream, and who then suddenly disappeared leaving many folks' music collections in the lurch in a warehouse somewhere. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/13/21019565/murfie-madison-wisconsin-store-stream-cd-vinyl-collection-closed https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/13/21019565/murfie-madison-... Oh, let me add one more. Gobbler was a popular backup storage service for multimedia creators who one day just... lost everything when they didn't pay their cloud storage provider. https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1100884-psa-gobbler-catastrophic-data-loss.html https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1100884-psa-gobb... These are just recent, high-visibility ones. Any number of smaller players have suddenly been yeeted into the sun.