[Dylan16807]

Why can't we have it both ways?

You have this unstated assumption that they have to quickly abandon products that don't gain traction. But that's not true. It's short-term thinking over long-term.

When a company spends 30 man years developing a product, they can set aside 1 or 2 extra for long term maintenance. By promising or consistently providing this, they can build customer trust and get more users.

Keeping digital services up is cheap. It's shameful whenever DRM or video game servers go down after just a couple years because the company ran out of money or doesn't care anymore. These things could have been funded upfront with the tiniest fraction of the budget.