Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform
by primitivesuave on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @08:14PM
(#11727061)
This is a good point. However, products are usually discontinued because they no longer fit in with the core business of the acquirer. In this case, Google is making a clear statement that Firebase will be an integral part of the Google Cloud experience for everyone (hobbyists all the way to apps at scale).
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform
by iofj on Thursday May 19, 2016 @12:11AM
(#11727911)
> sunk cost and shouldn't even matter
Shouldn't but does. It has it's own fallacy section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_t...
Also, not falling for the fallacy means admitting defeat. And the higher up one is in an organization, the worse admitting defeat is for your career. Having a product dead-ended by keeping on working on it forever is much better for manager/government official careers. So sadly, the fact that other people (above you) fall for the fallacy makes falling for it yourself rational in a lot of cases. Instead just systematically lower the priority, but never to zero.
In anything but a startup, I would treat any sunk cost above a minimal level as a firm commitment to continue at any cost. I would never have done so 5 years ago, but ...
There's no shortage of discontinued products that were cancelled even though a lot of effort and money was poured into them. Amount previously invested is a sunk cost and shouldn't even matter when deciding if continue a service/product or not. Just because you have already dig a hole doesn't mean you should keep digging even though you can't profit from it.