What happens when the app you rely on shuts down?
Services close, gadgets get switched off from afar and terms change without warning. What the record shows, and why software you run yourself has no end date.
Most people know, roughly, that online services don’t last forever. What they miss is how often it happens, and how little say you get when it does.
What the record shows
Google is the usual example, partly because someone keeps count. The Killed by Google list shows 307 closed products: 68 apps, 215 services and 24 pieces of hardware.
Some were things almost nobody used. Others were not.
- Google Reader ran from 2005 to 2013. Millions used it to follow their reading, and it closed while still popular.
- Google+ ran from 2011 to 2019.
- Stadia ran from 2019 to 2023. A games service, shut about three years in, after people had bought games on it.
- Google Podcasts ran from 2018 to 2024.
- Google Domains ran from 2014 to 2023, then was sold to another company.
This isn’t about picking on one firm. Google is just the best recorded, and its size lets it afford to close things. Every company does this. Most just do it more quietly.
a service somebody else runs
You come to rely on it
Often for years, and often for something you can't replace.
The announcement arrives
On a date picked by people who never told you their plans.
A window to download your things
Then it is switched off, and anything you did not save is gone.
open software you run yourself
You come to rely on it
On a machine you control, with the files already yours.
The project may slow down or stop
This really does happen. Projects get abandoned all the time.
Your copy keeps running
Nothing switches off on a date you did not choose, and the code stays public for somebody else to take over.
It isn’t only services
Hardware can be switched off from a distance too. In 2016, Nest (owned by Google) shut down the servers behind the Revolv smart-home hub. People had paid around three hundred dollars for it, sold with a “lifetime subscription”. Turning off the service left the device useless. After a public outcry, Nest paid people back.
More recently, Spotify dropped its Car Thing dashboard gadget and said it would stop working completely in December 2024. The company first refused refunds, then changed its mind after angry customers and a lawsuit.
Both stories follow the same pattern. The thing you bought only worked for as long as someone else chose to keep a server running.
And the rules can change under you
A shutdown is the dramatic version. The quieter one is a change to the terms.
In June 2024, Adobe rewrote its terms of use. Many customers read it as claiming wide rights over work they had made in Adobe’s software. The reaction was loud enough that Adobe put out explanations, then rewrote the terms again to spell out what it would and would not do.
Whether the first wording meant what people feared is fairly arguable. The position underneath is not. The terms covering your own work could be rewritten, and you first heard about it in an email. A phone can go the same way. Google is changing what Android will install, on phones people already own.
What “you own it” is really worth
Run open-source software (software whose code is public, so anyone can use it) on hardware you control, and things change in a specific, limited way. This often gets oversold, so let’s be exact.
Nothing switches off on someone else’s timetable. Your version keeps running, because there is no company that can set a shutdown date.
The rules can’t be rewritten on you. Open-source licences don’t get changed behind your back. The terms you accepted are the terms you keep.
The files are already yours, on your own disk, in ordinary formats. There’s no download to finish before a deadline, because there is no deadline.
And if the project stops, you aren’t thrown out. This is the honest version of “open source lasts forever”. Projects do get abandoned, often. But here that means something different. A closed service that is abandoned disappears. An open project that is abandoned just stops getting new versions. Your copy keeps working, and the code stays public for someone else to take over. Several popular self-hosted tools exist today because exactly that happened.
What it doesn’t protect you from
To be straight about the limits:
Software ages. An abandoned project will in time stop working with new operating systems, browsers or phones. Running forever isn’t the same as running well.
Security fixes stop, and that’s the real risk. When nobody looks after the software, its weak spots stop getting fixed. That matters a lot for anything people can reach over the internet.
You become the migration plan. When something finally needs replacing, no friendly email arrives to tell you.
And your hardware will fail. That is a backup problem, and by far the most likely way to lose your things.
The practical version
None of this means giving up services other people run. It means noticing which things you would really mind losing, and treating those differently.
For anything you would mind losing:
- Check how you would get your things out before you need to. If there’s no easy way to download everything in a standard format, that tells you how much they expect you to leave.
- Keep your own copy of anything you can’t replace, especially photos. If a service holds the only copy of something, you are relying on hope, not storage.
- Choose standard formats. A photo is a photo anywhere. A note saved in one company’s own format is a note stuck in their app.
- For the things that matter most, think about running them yourself. Not because it’s easier, but because nobody else can set the end date.
For everything else, use whatever’s handy and enjoy it. Most things don’t need any of this, and pretending they do is tiring.
The real question was never “will this shut down?”. Given enough time, most things do. The question is what happens to your things when it does. Ask that at the start, and a shutdown notice becomes a small annoyance rather than a nasty surprise.