This matches my experience over 15 years and four companies. This is not a scientific study but I can at least concur with your experience. There are clearly orgs that don’t work this way, but I find that it’s very common when chatting with my PM colleagues. The exceptional cases have been project managers for projects that involve wide scope, multiple products, or some other factor.

I’ve also found that in addition to the Project Manager turned Product Manager, there are plenty of Product Managers forced to be Project Managers and it goes poorly unless a Development Manager is willing to carry that.

The ultimate problem is that Project Management doesn’t go away just because a company eliminates the role. The same is true for Product Management. If you’re ok with your developers or someone else doing the work, and it is fruitful, great. For about a decade I tried as hard as I could to get one of the limited Product Managers for the products I worked on to very little avail. As a result I had to guess about price increases and other functions that I, someone with 70% of a CS degree and some extension courses in business topics, have to learn on the fly each time I face the challenge. I was successful but I am sure a real Product Manager would have done a better job.

The companies I’ve worked for typically have a cynical view of dedicated Project Managers but I appreciate that this is a specific skill for similar reasons to my Development Manager forced to be a Product Manager experience.