The market doesnt reward to, effectively.

The real thing is to treat a product as a sustaining engineer product, so minor new features, catering to the users you already have rather than trying to chase growth, etc.

publicly traded companies don't want steady profits. They want infinite growth, and growth requires investment in R&D. Hence the huge hiring sprees over the pandemic.

But prospects point towards a recession, the boons of the pandemic are over, and interest rates aren't dirt low anymore. Which is why companies are indeed shifting down to "maintenance mode".