Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

Windows-compatible and alternative OS efforts

• ReactOS seen as noble but likely doomed: extremely hard clean-room reimplementation of Windows NT with kernel, drivers, and moving API target. Leaks of Windows source can’t be used and even slow development via “taint.” Wine/Proton/VMs are “good enough,” removing demand for a half-baked clone.
• Some still deploy ReactOS or Wine in niche cases, but legal risk and low payoff deter contributors.
• Other “lost OS” mentions: Midori (capability OS at Microsoft), Plan 9, OS/2, BeOS/Haiku, Genera, Copland/Longhorn, WinFS, FirefoxOS, WebOS, Windows Phone. Often praised as technically elegant but outcompeted, politically killed, or misaligned with hardware/market timing.

Mobile OS and device “what‑ifs”

• Maemo/Meego, WebOS, Boot2Gecko/FirefoxOS, Openmoko, PinePhone, HP TouchPad, Project Ara: people imagine an alternate world with open Linux-based mobile ecosystems and modular hardware.
• Many blame Nokia’s Microsoft partnership, lack of strong alliances (with Palm/RIM), and chasing new markets instead of serving existing users.
• KaiOS seen as a small surviving branch of that lineage.

Web and multimedia platforms

• Macromedia Flash/Adobe Animate, Shockwave, Silverlight remembered for incredible tooling (movieclips, code+animation integration, rich UIs) and accessible game creation.
• Others are glad they died: security disasters, proprietary stacks that blocked open standards, awful UX on many sites. Some baffled Adobe never shipped a first-class JS/Canvas runtime.
• Yahoo Pipes, Google Wave, Google Desktop, Ubiquity, iGoogle: beloved as composable, programmable web tools. People miss the “pipes”/mashup model; current replacements (Zapier, Node-RED, Camel, Beaker/Dat) feel weaker or more enterprise-focused.

Developer tools, languages, and infra

• Opa, Elm, Austral, Vale, Fortress, Eve, RethinkDB, Meteor, Heroku’s original simplicity, Sandstorm, Sourcetrail, Visual Basic 6/Delphi, Fireworks, Adobe Flex, Silverlight, Positron: all cited as “ahead of their time” or more ergonomic than today’s stacks.
• Common failure modes: restrictive licenses (e.g. AGPL), too-tightly bundled frameworks, lack of ecosystem, corporate pivots, or a single maintainer burning out or being hired away.

Social/media and consumer products

• Vine widely seen as a huge missed opportunity that Twitter mismanaged; TikTok is framed as the alternate history where Vine survived.
• Google Reader’s shutdown is called a catastrophic trust-break with a highly influential user base, symbolizing “killed by Google.” Similar frustration with Picasa, Hangouts, Play Music, Podcasts, etc.
• Google Glass and Humane AI Pin spark split views: visionary but creepy/anti-social vs useless B2VC gadgets. Privacy concerns (recording, surveillance) loom large.

Decentralized, privacy, and experimental systems

• Secure Scuttlebutt, ZeroNet, Beaker/Dat, Namecoin, Ricochet, Memex/VPRI/HyperCard-like visions, Sandstorm, XenClient: admired for rethinking identity, hosting, and interaction, but undercut by poor onboarding, drama, incompatible visions, or lack of obvious niche.
• Apple’s on-device CSAM scanning prototype triggers a long argument: one side sees it as a carefully engineered, privacy-preserving improvement over cloud scanning; others see any client-side scanning as an unacceptable precedent and inevitable target for government pressure and bugs.

Cross-cutting themes on why projects die

• Corporate strategy shifts and acqui-kills (Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Microsoft, HP).
• Legal/IP concerns, patents, clean-room constraints.
• Design-by-committee and over-ambitious scopes vs shipping something simple.
• Open-source governance drama and consensus paralysis.
• Market timing: hardware too weak, users not ready, or competitors “just good enough.”
• Nostalgia: some users admit that beloved old systems (e.g. Windows XP) feel worse when revisited, but still miss their philosophies and freedoms.