Shut down a four year side project last month and the relief was the surprise
Four years, about 60 paying users at the end, roughly enough to cover hosting and a takeaway. Not a failure. Not a business either. It sat in the middle where it was too alive to ignore and too small to matter, which I now think is the worst place a project can be.
I had been telling myself for eighteen months that I would get back to it properly. In practice that meant fixing things when they broke, apologising for slow support, and feeling vaguely guilty every single weekend.
Emailed everyone, gave three months notice, exported everyone's data, refunded the annual plans pro rata. Half a dozen people were genuinely sad which was harder than I expected. Two asked if they could buy it, which I had not considered at all.
Six weeks later and the main thing I feel is that I got a weekend back that I had not realised was gone.
@sunk_cost_aware · 2w ago · 3 replies
Going to offer the other side, gently. Three months notice and pro rata refunds is the right way to do it, and it is also expensive in a way that stops a lot of people from ever closing anything.
I have two projects I would shut tomorrow if closing them were free. It is not free, so they limp on, and that is a real trap rather than a character flaw. Worth naming for anyone reading this and feeling bad about themselves.
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@still_paying_hosting · 2w ago · 2 replies
Four dead projects here, all still billing me monthly, all because turning them off properly is a weekend I never have. The hosting is cheaper than the weekend, which is a genuinely stupid equilibrium to be in.
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@shut_it_down · 2w ago
Mine took about two days total, spread over three weeks. Not nothing, but much less than the eighteen months of low grade guilt it replaced. Whatever you are imagining it costs, it is probably less.
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