How this site works

01What qualifies

The archive records dead or abandoned products. A product that survived a public meltdown goes to Incidents; a living product with source-backed concerns goes to the Watchlist. An acquisition where the product lives on is not a fail.

02What moves an entry to the Archive

From the Watchlist

Two independent sources must establish a shutdown, discontinuation or abandonment. We update the fail type and outcome, record the change and score the Archive entry. When concerns resolve, we retire the watchlist entry with its reason visible.

From Incidents

If a product later dies, its entry moves to the Archive with the sourced outcome and a Fail Score. A resolved incident alone is not a death.

03The evidence ladder

Every key claim needs two independent sources, including at least one E1 primary record or E2 major outlet. Every money figure needs an E1 or E2 source. Syndicated copies and outlets quoting the same press release count as one reporting group. Every source records a supporting quote, access date, archive URL and the claims it supports. E4 alone never supports a factual claim about a company.

04How similar fails and Idea Check match

Similarity = 0.6 × embedding cosine + 0.4 × structured overlap. Overlap adds category +1, primary cause +2, form factor +1, user type +1, era +0.5 and shared idea cluster +2, divided by 7.5. Missing dimensions add nothing. A match percentage is this similarity score expressed as a percentage, not a probability of failure.

Idea Check retrieves candidates using full-text and embedding matches, then applies this formula against the idea’s inferred dimensions. A published idea cluster matches above 0.65 cosine similarity; the highest matching cluster supplies up to three most recent recorded deaths and their primary causes for the timing question. Timing verdict, sentiment and Fail Score never filter or score these matches. Incident and watchlist matches keep their section and outcome labels. Warning signs in an idea must quote the supplied text; signs recorded in neighbouring entries are shown separately.

06The money counter

Only disclosed raised and write-down figures for archive entries with outcomes shut down, acquihired and killed, or product discontinued where spend was disclosed. Incidents and watchlist items never count. Settlements, refunds, fines, market-cap drops and estimates may appear on cards with their method labels but are never summed. Reported currencies are kept separate.

08Taxonomy

Every entry has one tier, fail type, outcome and category, with one primary cause leaf and up to two secondary causes. The primary cause is the one that would have killed it alone.

See the cause glossary and warning-sign checklist below for the full reference vocabulary.

10Status vocabulary

Shut Down

Both the product and the company are gone.

Product Discontinued

The product is gone while its company remains active.

Acquihired Killed

An acquirer took the team and the product was shut down.

Absorbed Into Platform

The product's function now lives inside an incumbent's platform.

Pivoted Away

The company remains active but no longer pursues the original product or use case.

Zombie

The product is technically alive but has no meaningful activity, as supported by two sources.

Incident Resolved

The product survived a public meltdown and the incident has been resolved.

Ongoing

The product remains active and belongs only on the watchlist.

11Right of reply & corrections

Named companies and founders can respond; replies are published on the entry, unedited, above the fold. Report a factual error or request a reply through corrections. Requests are reviewed within 48 hours; credible complaints can lead to temporary unpublication or correction, with dated public changes.

12Open data

Card-level fields and sources are available under CC BY 4.0. Narratives stay on-site. Download the data → or build with the API →.