Launched in 2010, Xbox Kinect’s motion-control capabilities mostly appealed to casual gamer and wasn’t able to endear itself to the hardcore gamer. This led to limited interest from third-party developers due do the limited number of Kinects sold as well as its technical limitations.
A theremini is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). The thereminist stands in front of the instrument and moves their hands in the proximity of two metal antennas. It soon fell into disuse with serious musicians, mainly because newer electronic instruments were introduced that were easier to play.
The Google Search Appliance, introduced in 2002, was a rack-mounted computer device that provided document indexing functionality. Demand for a hardware appliance waned as cloud-based alternatives were made available.
Launched in 2018, AWS discontinued DeepLens in 2024. It was the world’s first deep-learning enabled video camera for developers. It was designed to help users grow their machine learning skills through hands-on computer vision tutorials, example code, and pre-built models. TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, Keras, and CUDA were the most popular alternatives and competitors to AWS DeepLens.
In 2024, Snap discontinued its Pixy flying selfie camera drone after just four months. The company recalled all 71K drones it sold because their batteries pose a fire hazard.
Founded in 1984, Nike Golf discontinued its equipment business in 2016. Declining sales was due to intense competition from other major brands such as Callaway, TaylorMade, and Titleist. The golf industry was struggling then due to a decline in the number of golfers, especially among younger generations. This trend had led to oversupply and intense price competition in the market, making it difficult for companies like Nike to maintain profitability.
Tickets.com was formed via acquisition of 10+ firms such as Prologue Software leading to its IPO in 1999. Due to the fast pace at which startups were merged without clear product segmentation, each merged startup wished to be the flagship product of Tickets.com. This caused rivalry and factions between group leaders. A formidable entity which could have competed against Ticketmaster saw the stock price quickly plummet by 80%. This led to Tickets.com being bought by its largest customer, MLB, for $66M in 2005 for its own ticket sales.
After peaking at an $6 billion valuation in the public market in 2021, 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in 2025. There’s no repeat incentive for consumers to keep testing their DNA. Plus security breaches impacted 6.9 million users and the data sold to drug developers wasn’t proving valuable enough.
Casetify, previously valued at $1B, manufactured custom phone cases. Consumers complained about their price and service, while their physical experience stores seemed unnecessary. They also plagiorized designs of dbrand and iFixit.
Launched in 1954, Sports Illustrated was one of the few sources of real sports reporting. Its circulation peaked 30 years ago and has been declining ever since. In 2018 it went biweekly and in 2020 it went monthly. Total annual circulation fell off a cliff leading to its demise in 2023.
ESPN and the social web saturated the public with sports and sports commentary, which meant week-old reporting was stale by the time it landed in your mailbox.
