After the sun sets it comes up the next morning, so saying someone is "sunsetting" something would be more of a long reboot than getting rid of the thing or shutting it down.

Why is this term used?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 1 point 1 day ago

The sun only rises after it sets because of inertia-- billions of years of the earth spinning. The earth only continues to spin because there's hardly any friction on a meaningful scale to slow it down which is why we just assume the earth will continue to spin and the sun will rise tomorrow.

Products are different though. They constantly fight friction slowing them down and only exist because someone invests in them and continues to support them. When a company "sunsets" a product they are removing their active involvement. In this analogy the product slows to a stop and the "sun" doesn't rise again.

It is still a pretty pretentious analogy though

  • source