Background: I'm friends with the owners of Wildbit, and have watched the journey they took that led to shutting down Newsberry. Several times, over a couple bottles of wine, my husband and I advised them to "just shut it down"! Because my husband & I run a very similar business, and we understand what it's like.

Here's the thing about the comments on this article, here on HN: of the people saying it was a mistake, that the article was misleading, etc, etc: How many of them have a profitable business with a team of any size, and multiple products?

That's the hidden problem with HN: with a few notable exceptions, everybody here is an Monday morning quarterback.

There is NOTHING more draining than to keep a product running "because it's just profitable enough." Or worse, because you feel guilty about shutting it down, because you feel like you're going to let down your customers.

There's nothing more divisive than a redheaded stepchild product.

There's nothing more wasteful than a distraction to you & your team.

Running 2 products is not simply double the work than running 1. Running 3 products is not simply 50% more than running 2.

When one runs a successful business oneself, one knows this implicitly.

But when you haven't, then you are likely to look at this kind of story and go "WTF? They just threw away $75k/year? But they could have spent 1 day a week on fixing it and making it more profitable! They could have hired a part-time designer!"

But this is just a lament wrapped up in logical, impartial language - but still a lament, which is really saying "WTF? I could use $75k/year! How could they possibly throw that away? WASTEFUL. SHAMEFUL."

Which is, really, totally understandable. Until you run a business of this scale, it's hard to imagine how $75k/yr in profit could be a millstone around your neck instead of something to celebrate. However, that does not good business advice make, and one must always consider the source & experience of the person dispensing it.