Why Products Die

Was there a product that you loved using, but now it seems to be out of the market? Is there a product you remember older folks told you about, but now it's off the chart? I bet some names are coming to mind.

Are you wondering if products die? Yes, they do, sadly. But are they supposed to? I guess they are not. In the product life-cycle, after a product has been developed, it is then introduced to the market, and it is expected to grow, but until it gets to the maturity stage, it is then usually expected to die, but some products have defied this law and others have just lived in accordance to it, because of some reasons that we’ll look at.

Below is an image showing the rise and fall of a product in the market, following the general product life-cycle.

Let’s look at some reasons today why some products have died. Please note that the death of products that is being referred to here doesn't mean that the products are not still in existence, some of them are, however, are just in the shadow of what they used to be.

1. Little or No Continuous Innovation:

When products fail to innovate or adapt to changes, they become obsolete. A product that is the king of the market today, maybe thrown out tomorrow, if there is no innovation. Problems scale, so for a product to remain relevant and strong in the market, that product must also scale to the problem’s level to solve it. Customers will always demand more, there will always be upgrades in technology, any product that doesn’t innovate in time, will die. Examples are;

• 2Go; a free social networking application developed by 2Go interactive Ltd in Cape Town, South Africa. As of 2012, 2Go had 12million users, beating Facebook's 6.5million users in Nigeria. 2Go simply did not innovate, data-cost was still high, gocredit was still required to do some things, it was still limited to some phones and meanwhile, WhatsApp was being built to be free and accessible on almost all kinds of phones, which made it better than 2Go in almost all ways.
• BlockBuster; a rental service giant for home movies and video games in 1985. At its peak period in 2004, Blockbuster had employed 84,300 people worldwide having 9090+ stores, but they were unable to innovate and adapt to the rising technology. Netflix offered to sell their company to BlockBuster for about USD 50 million, the CEO rejected it, years after, Blockbuster started losing money and filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Altho, the last blockbuster was still open as of April 2019.

2. Failure to solve problems:

When products do not solve problems or address our needs and want, we simply don’t use them. Before a product is brought to market, it is expected to be a solution to a problem and if it will thrive in the market, it is expected to continue solving problems. However, in the bid to drive higher profits or some other reasons, some products deviate from the original intention, and since it doesn’t solve problems anymore, people start dropping it until it eventually dies out. An example is;

• Google Video Player; the player was launched by Google in January 2005 and it did some nice stuff, like allowing you to watch videos from Google and watch videos in full screen, something a bit challenging as at 2007, but it did not solve any problems, we had video players already, so there was no use in having another, by the way, YouTube had even been acquired by Google then.

3. Copy Products:

When some products are out, and you compare them to existing products, at times, you cannot even tell the difference. Many have had ideas and have just executed them without finding out if there are other existing products and ways that those products could have been improved on. Customers cannot see the reason why they should move to the new product, not different from the existing product, then those new products die. Examples are;

• Google Buzz; Another promising product released by Google in February 2010, social networking, microblogging, and messaging tool. It was a Google-type clone for social networking app, Twitter. It was integrated into Gmail and users could post images, links, status updates, and videos, but there was no major upgrade over Twitter so people had no reason, Google eventually closed it up in 2013.

4. Bad Products:

When a product functions less than it is supposed to, it repels users, and what is a product without users? Let me share some examples of products in this category;

• TwitterPeek; a peek device made to receive and make tweets. It sucked at the only function it was made for, made an annoying buzzing sound, and was very stressful to use. The iPhone 3G was even out by then, in 2009, so why would anyone want to use this?. The product was bad, and it died.

5. Poor Timing:

When products are not brought into the market at the right time(when they are either too early or too late), it may cause them to die. At particular times, the market may not be ready, at some other times, technology may not be helping. Products released at the wrong time have a higher tendency of dying. An example is;

• z.com; an entertainment website at that time, had all it needed to be sustained –money, a great business model, and incredible Hollywood talents– but the technology wasn’t ready for it. Broadband penetration at that time was low and before users could view the videos, they would have to do some technical tweaks, the product was closed up in 2003, but as soon as Adobe solved that problem, YouTube took off.

Conclusion

Products die, but they are not supposed to. Keep innovating, adapting to changes, and listening to problems. What other reason do you think makes products die? Please share with me. You can reach me on Twitter to continue the discussion; @ayfolut