Jacob Michael has been a freelance writer since 2010, with expertise in computers, cooking, travel and other topics. He holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and is pursuing a master's degree in American studies.

Nothing lasts forever, especially in Silicon Valley. Products, services, and CEOs fizzle out regularly, many without any fanfare. Other endings catch us by surprise (10 years later, the demise of Google Reader still stings). Time marches on and corporate priorities shift. Here are the products and services that took a final bow in 2023, starting with the most headline-grabbing shutdowns and then a month-by-month breakdown.

(Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

Elon Musk has been at the helm of Twitter for more than a year now, and perhaps his most notable move thus far is killing a name with global brand recognition in favor of a letter more commonly associated with adult content. 

The transition started in April when Twitter was merged into X Corp., Musk’s umbrella company. Several months later—in the middle of the night—Musk announced that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” It wasn’t immediately clear if he was being serious; Musk has a history of posting spur-of-the-moment tweets that would supply even the most seasoned of legal and comms teams a coronary. But he was indeed serious this time, and in a matter of weeks, the bird logo was replaced with a black-and-white X, tweets were renamed posts, and 15+ years of brand building went up in smoke.

We’re currently in that limbo state where every news story about the company refers to it as Twitter/X or “X, previously Twitter.” And while the core service lives on, it’s certainly not the same pre-Musk Twitter. 

The company’s API crackdown meant the end of third-party clients like Twitterific. Meanwhile, the demise of legacy checkmark accounts and the ability to purchase verification has made it difficult to know whether an account is legitimate. Musk’s “free speech” stance means some of the internet’s most vile characters are once again on our timelines. And by telling his top advertisers to “fuck off” after they jumped ship over his antisemitic tweets, Musk isn’t exactly helping the company pay off its massive debts. “Let the chips fall where they may,” Musk said recently. Check back next year to see how that pans out.

Dead Air: Clubhouse Clones Fade Away

In the early days of the pandemic, when Zoom happy hours and sourdough starters proliferated, Clubhouse burst onto the scene with an app that facilitated audio-only chats between groups large and small. Tech giants quickly churned out their own Clubhouse clones, but these party-line throwbacks were not long for this world. Facebook was the first to go, ditching its Live Audio Rooms in December 2022, but 2023 also saw the end of Reddit Talk, Spotify Live, and Amazon’s live radio DJ Amp app. X Spaces is still around, though presidential hopefuls may not want to rely on it for campaign launches.

Netflix's DVD Business

After 25 years, Netflix’s DVD business said goodbye this year, as the company formally shifted all its attention to streaming. The final DVDs went out on in September, and it let existing members hang on to up to 10 DVDs for old time’s sake.

The move came as brick-and-mortar retailers scaled back their DVD inventories. In October, Best Buy said it would end DVD and Blu-ray disc sales in 2024. You can still grab them online at various retailers, and data suggests people aren’t quite ready to fully abandon DVDs, driven in part by “the nostalgia and collectability of physical media,” according to analyst firm Circana.

Holding on to your favorites in physical form is probably a good idea for movie buffs. While it may seem like any movie under the sun is available on a streaming service these days, some are yanking popular selections from their rotation to avoid hefty licensing fees. 

Netflix Password Sharing 

(Credit: Netflix)

As promised, Netflix kicked off a password-sharing crackdown this year. The company rolled out the option to add two extra people to your account, but at $7.99 per person per month, it likely makes more sense for moochers to get their own subscription to Netflix’s $6.99-per-month, ad-supported tier. And that’s exactly what Netflix has in mind as it eyes ways to boost subscriber numbers and revenue. There do appear to be some password-sharing workarounds, mostly for those who don’t use a smart TV to watch Netflix. But Netflix said in October that people should expect it to complete the crackdown in the next two quarters.

JANUARY 

Snap Camera App

This Snapchat app, which famously replaced a lawyer’s visage with that of a kitten, took off during the pandemic as we all tried to have fun with what was then a novel concept: Zoom meetings. These days, video chats are a mundane part of office life and no one wants to see you as a potato. Snap agreed and got rid of the app in January.

AltspaceVR

This social VR platform—which let you attend live concerts, yoga sessions, and play games with friends—first announced plans to shut down in 2017, but was saved by Microsoft. This year, however, Redmond shifted its resources and AltspaceVR got the axe.

FEBRUARY

(Credit: Amazon)

AmazonSmile

Launched in 2013, AmazonSmile saw Amazon donate 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases made through smile.amazon.com to charity, with consumers able to choose from over a million charitable organizations to support. On Feb. 20, however, the program shut down because it "has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped,” Amazon said at the time.

MARCH

Google Glass Enterprise Edition  (Credit: Google)

NFTs on Facebook and Instagram

Remember non-fungible tokens (NFTs)? Somehow, crypto bros convinced people to spend big bucks on what are essentially JPEGs. (Don’t try to convince me otherwise.) Meta got in on the action in 2022, allowing Instagram users to create NFTs and Facebook users to share them. It didn’t exactly set either social network on fire and Meta said in March it would be “winding down digital collectibles.”

Google Glass Enterprise Edition 

You know who probably loved NFTs? Glassholes. Over a decade ago, Google Glass emerged as smart glasses that let you pull up information and access the internet through a single lens. However, the genuine device suffered from a myriad of issues including short battery life, concerns about privacy, and a high price at $1,500. Google briefly pivoted to the enterprise before throwing in the towel on Glass this year.

Subs for Print and Kindle Magazines, Newspapers on Amazon

Print is still kicking, but not on Amazon. Earlier this year, Amazon turned off Kindle Newsstand and print magazine subscription orders, as well as the ability to renew annual Kindle Newsstand or print subscriptions and manage print magazine subscriptions through Amazon.

Lenovo's Legion Gaming Phone Business

Gaming phones are a unique category, but as phones become ever more powerful each year, there’s less of a need to buy a phone based off promised gaming capabilities. Especially when there are gaming handhelds like the Switch, Steam Deck, and Asus ROG Ally. Lenovo perhaps saw the writing on the wall this year when it decided to ditch its Legion gaming phone business, citing “a wider business transformation and gaming portfolio consolidation.” That transformation resulted in the launch of its own handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go.

APRIL

Amazon Halo (Credit: Angela Moscaritolo)

Amazon Halo Brand

Amazon introduced the Halo brand in August 2020 in an effort to expand into the health and fitness market, years after rivals like Fitbit, Samsung, and Apple did the same. Its first product was the Halo Band, a display-less fitness tracker that could record all kinds of health-related stats in return for signing up for a paid subscription. But while Amazon’s Echo speakers dominate the smart home space, it never really caught up on fitness trackers. In our review of the Amazon Halo, we found that “its tone of voice and body composition analysis features are a bit creepy.” Amazon announced it would stop supporting Amazon Halo effective July 31, 2023. On the plus side, those who bought a Halo product in the past 12 months through Amazon got a full refund. 

Heardle

As Wordle took the world by storm in late 2021, copycat services made the rounds, including music-guessing game Heardle. It was acquired by Spotify in 2022, but less than a year later, the music-streaming service said it would shut down Heardle to focus on music-discovery features.

MAY

(Credit: Sony)

PlayStation Plus Collection

When the PS5 launched in 2020, the PlayStation Plus Collection offered next-gen console players 20 PS4 classic games for free as studios built up their PS5 offerings. Three years in, the PS5 game library is robust, so the PlayStation Plus Collection closed up shop in May. The games are still available to play if you have an active PlayStation Plus membership.

OverDrive

If you’re a voracious reader, keeping up with the latest releases can be an expensive hobby. Luckily, there are apps that let you borrow e-books from your local library. OverDrive was one of those options for more than 20 years, but with the introduction of the Libby app in 2017, having two apps that provided largely the same functionality was redundant. The OverDrive app was retired in May, and existing users were encouraged to switch to Libby.

JUNE

(Credit: Amazon)

Alexa Celebrity Voices

Samuel L. Jackson launched Amazon's Celebrity Voice Program in 2019, when the actor's iconic timbre became the top-selling digital purchase online. Users could download the skill for $0.99 to ask Jackson important questions, like what his favorite movie line is or how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Others, like Shaquille O'Neal and Melissa McCarthy, soon joined him, alongside a few prices hikes. Perhaps the fees to license these celeb voices became too expensive for a company focused on spending cuts this year. Jackson’s voice vanished in June while the other two followed suit in September.

Cortana on Windows

In June, AI claimed its latest victim by coming after Microsoft’s Cortana. The voice assistant never really made a splash compared to Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, and with the launch of Bing Chat (now Copilot), Microsoft removed Cortana as a built-in app on Windows.

Neato Robotics

Robot vacuums have seen a big uptick in popularity in exact years, but it’s a crowded market. Roomba maker iRobot now has Amazon money, and our most exact Readers’ Choice survey on robot vacs and mops has Shark, iRobot, and Eufy leading the way. One company just couldn’t compete; Neato Robotics shut down this year after 18 years because it had “not achieved its self-defined economic goals for several years now.” Earlier Neato devices earned top marks from PCMag, but more exact models topped out at 3.5/5 stars.

Google Domains

Google is notorious for killing its products and services at random, and among the products that got the heave-ho from Mountain View this year is Google Domains. In June, it sold its domain name registry business to Squarespace, which acquired the 10 million domains hosted by Google and its millions of customers. As to why Google decided to sell, it was "in keeping with our efforts to sharpen our focus.” 

YouTube Stories

Not to be confused with YouTube Shorts, Stories launched in late 2017 to YouTube users with over 10,000 subscribers. Like Stories on Instagram and Snapchat, users with access to YouTube Stories were able to post content that disappeared after a set amount of time. But that’s not really what YouTube is about; creators there are usually looking to build channels with a backlog of videos that viewers can rewatch (generating revenue for creators in the process). So Stories shut down on June 26, with YouTube encouraging people to try out Shorts or Community posts.

TikTok’s BeReal Clone

For a hot second, tech companies stepped away from creating Clubhouse clones to focus on another nascent app: BeReal, which encourages people to share genuine moments versus curated, overly edited shots. TikTok Now was Bytedance’s version. It incorporated video in addition to still images, but as interest in the genuine BeReal waned, TikTok killed TikTok Now, less than a year after its debut.

Third-Party Reddit Clients

Many AI chatbots are trained by data scraped from the internet, including sites like Reddit, which this year decided to start charging companies that use its wide-ranging discussion boards to inform services like Copilot and Bard. The idea was to get a chunk of AI change from giants like Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft, but smaller developers that scraped Reddit for third-party clients also found themselves covered by the new policy. Christian Selig, the developer of Apollo, for example, said that Reddit’s proposed fee structure would cost him $20 million per year. After a public back and forth with Reddit, Selig pulled the plug on Apollo, as did several other clients.

AUGUST

(Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Stitcher Podcast App

Three years after acquiring podcast player app Stitcher, SiriusXM announced plans to shut down the standalone app and incorporate it into its premium SiriusXM app. Stitcher dated back to 2008 and changed hands several times over the years. If you’re still looking for a good Stitcher alternative, check out our roundup of the top podcast player apps.

Verizon BlueJeans

In the early days of the 2020 remote-work shift, Verizon acquired video chat provider BlueJeans. The service earned an Editors’ Choice award from PCMag for its broad platform support, though it lacked some key features. It also couldn’t compete with Zoom and other more popular video-conferencing apps, so Verizon announced that it will shut down BlueJeans in the first half of 2024.

Pixel Pass

Pixel Pass first appeared in 2021 with the Pixel 6 as Google's attempt to offer an all-in-one hardware and services subscription option for Pixel enthusiasts. Back then, you could get a new Pixel handset every two years with the "Preferred Care" protection plan, as well as access to YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, and the 200GB tier of Google One for $45 per month ($55 per month if you wanted Pixel 6 Pro hardware). That perk ended this year with little explanation, though existing subscribers will have access to the end of their two-year terms.

Messenger Lite

Back in 2016, Facebook launched Messenger Lite for older Android devices. It was designed to be light on resources, offered a basic set of features for chatting, and promised to work even on slow or unstable connections. Seven years later, even low-end Android devices have plenty of storage and memory available to handle non-lite versions of apps, so Meta shuttered Messenger Lite and encouraged people to shift to the full Messenger app.

SEPTEMBER

(Credit: PCMag)

Google Jamboard

In the pre-pandemic era, when we were all gathering in crowded conference rooms and using whiteboards to map out the Next Big Thing, Microsoft and Google served up smart whiteboards that allowed for more modern collaboration without white board marker wooziness. Google’s version was known as the Jamboard, a 55-inch, $5,000 device that we said lacked some of the more advanced features found on Microsoft’s Surface Hub. In September, Google announced plans to “wind down” support for the Jamboard in 2024. Smart whiteboard fans who have at least $9,500 can still grab a Surface Hub 3.

Gmail's Basic HTML View

Another “lite” version that's getting kicked to the curb is Gmail’s Basic HTML view, which allowed users on slow connections or legacy browsers to view and send emails without the overhead of the full Gmail experience needing to load first. However, that option disappears in January 2024, at which point Gmail automatically changes to Standard view. Why? Google says only that “Gmail Basic HTML views are previous versions of Gmail that were replaced by their modern successors 10+ years ago and do not include full Gmail feature functionality."

YouTube Premium Lite

Similar to Messenger Lite, YouTube Premium Lite offered European customers ad-free video streaming, but none of the other features found in the full app, for half the price. After two years, though, Google pulled the plug with little explanation, though if the continued presence of aggressive pop-up promos for Premium all over the free version of YouTube are any indication, it’s probably a revenue play.

Google Podcasts App

Google’s consolidation spree continues with its standalone podcasts app. It will shut down early next year as the company centralizes podcast listening on YouTube Music, which began supporting podcasting channels in April. Google Podcasts first launched on Android in 2018, followed by iOS in 2020; it’s also available on the web. But not for long. Here’s how to migrate your podcasts to YouTube Music.

Microsoft WordPad

WordPad, which offers users a basic word processor and document editor, has been installed by default on Windows computers since the launch of Windows 95. It became optional in a 2020  Windows 10 update, and this fall, Microsoft confirmed that WordPad “will be removed in a future release of Windows,” though it hasn’t specified which one. Redmond is encouraging people to use Microsoft Word for rich text documents and Notepad for plain text docs. The latter got several long-awaited updates this year, including autosave.

Amazon Alexa Guard

With the launch of Alexa Emergency Assist, which lets subscribers ask Alexa to call for help, two well-known Alexa Guard free features—the ability to listen for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors or the sound of glass breaking—were folded into Emergency Assist and put behind its $5.99-per-month subscription. Alexa Guard itself was discontinued, though basic features like Home and Away and "Away Lighting" are still free to use.

OCTOBER

(Credit: Mint/PCMag)

Mint Personal Finance App

Intuit had a Halloween trick for users of its Mint app: the once-pioneering tool would shut down and move its users to Intuit’s Credit Karma service. Mint features like its consolidated view of financial accounts, transaction tracking, spending and cash-flow reports and net-worth estimates will be available via Credit Karma, but Mint’s budgeting features (and support for some financial institutions) will not. For more choices, see our roundup of the best personal finance software.

NOVEMBER

(Credit: Apple)

Apple Music Voice Plan

Streaming services of all stripes have seen price hikes over the last year or so. Apple Music jumped on that train in October 2022, and this year saw it get rid of its most affordable plan. For $4.99 per month, the Apple Music Voice plan allowed for unlimited streams, but the caveat was that you had to ask Siri to play everything. In explaining the move, Apple said only that it's "focused on delivering the best, most robust music experience possible for our customers."

Omegle

Omegle emerged in 2009, when founder Leif K-Brooks looked to introduce "a form of social spontaneity that I felt didn’t exist elsewhere." Omegle randomly paired up people for video-based chats, which was an interesting idea in theory but was abused over the years by bad actors targeting children. The resulting lawsuits were a “never-ending battle that must be fought and re-fought every day,” K-Brooks said in announcing the site’s shutdown. "The stress and expense of this fight—coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse—are simply too much," he said.

Overwatch League

Blizzard’s Overwatch League (OWL) called it quits after six seasons following a less-than-stellar year. The Chengdu Hunters quit the league in June after Overwatch 2 was shut down in China following a licensing dispute between Blizzard and NetEase. After that, the remaining teams suffered a series of layoffs as did Blizzard's esports staff. Blizzard tried to help with things like waiving the franchise fees, which were between $20-$35 million. Despite that, the league took a vote about how to proceed and decided to call it quits. Each team receives a $6 million termination fee from Blizzard, a $114 million total payout.

Tumblr Post+

Tumblr waded into individual subscriptions a few years ago with Post+, which offered a Patreon-like option to support Tumblr creators. “It was intended as a way for creators to offer content to their followers in a paid subscription format,” Tumblr said in a November post. “Well, it didn’t land as we’d hoped,” and it no longer makes financial sense “to maintain and operate Post+ based on current usage." Tumblr users can no longer enable Post+ on their blogs, and existing Post+ content will only be available until the end of 2023. (Tipping will continue.) The move comes after a tough year for Tumblr, which plans a major overhaul for 2024.

DECEMBER

E3

The Entertainment Software Association's (ESA) annual gaming expo has been fading since 2020, when the pandemic forced organizers to cancel. It attempted a few comebacks in the years since, but as major studios opted for their own showcases and dropped out of E3, the ESA formally called game over in mid-December. For a trip down memory lane, check out RIP E3: 9 Jaw-Dropping Moments From Years Past.

Comixology 

Almost 10 years after acquiring digital comics app Comixology, Amazon folded it into the Kindle apps on iOS, Android, and Fire OS. Books previously purchased on Comixology were automatically transferred to libraries on the Kindle app. Comixology brought titles from a wide array of publishers—including DC, Image, and Marvel—to web browsers and Android and iOS mobile apps. It earned a 4.5/5 and an Editors' Choice award from PCMag for features like Guided View mode, which made reading a pleasure on small devices, plus digital comics that released on the same day as print editions, and unlimited reading via the premium Comixology plan. “All books that are available in the Comixology app are also available in the Kindle app,” Amazon says.

Venmo on Amazon 

Amazon is dropping Venmo as a payment option, effective Jan. 10, a little over a year after Amazon rolled out the ability to pay for purchases using the mobile payment app. Back then, Max Bardon, VP of Worldwide Payments, said Amazon was adding Venmo as a way to “meet the needs and preferences of every Amazon customer” when it comes to payments. While Amazon plans to continue to accept Venmo debit and credit cards, Venmo accounts can no longer be added to Amazon accounts as a form of payment and will only be usable for the next few weeks for those who previously added their Venmo accounts to their Amazon wallet.

Bose Frames

Bose Frames Tempo (Credit: Bose)

Bose dipped into AR glasses in 2018 with the Bose Frames, which turned sunglasses into a wearable audio device. In our review of the original pair, we found they delivered crisp and clear audio through a classic, stylish design. The sports-focused 2020 followed, Bose Frames Tempo, largely improved on the overall fit and usefulness of the design rather than the audio experience. Both versions got a 3.5/5 from us, but as of this month, Bose is throwing in the towel, Digital Trends reports. Those looking for a replacement can check out the Amazon Echo Frames or Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses; we rated the latter slightly higher.

Google Groups Drop Usenet Support

Google plans to retire the Usenet gateway it’s maintained at its Google Groups site since 2001. "Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use Google Groups to post content to Usenet groups, subscribe to Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content,” says a December post on the Groups help forum. "You can continue to view and search for historical Usenet content posted before February 22, 2024 on Google Groups." For more, check out our look back at one of the oldest forms of social media.

Windows Mixed Reality

Microsoft plans to remove Windows Mixed Reality from its operating system "in a future release of Windows." Microsoft’s VR ecosystem for Windows PCs dates back to 2015, but it never really took off and has been inactive for several years. Windows Mixed Reality made its way into several headsets between 2017 and 2021; versions from Acer and HP received 3/5 average scores from PCMag, thanks to "awkward quirks" and lackluster content on the platform. The headsets largely dropped off after that, in part due to the success of Steam VR, which offers a more robust game library, among other features.

Hyperloop One

Hyperloop One is perhaps one of the most well-known companies to take a shot at creating a functional hyperloop system, but it’s been through multiple name changes and burned through hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, with little to show for it. PCMag was on hand in 2016 for the first public test of the propulsion system in Las Vegas, but the promise of going from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 45 minutes will have to wait. Hyperloop One will shut down at the end of this year.

Zulily

Zulily launched in 2009 and had a strong start, including a multi-billion IPO in 2013. But it faced significant competition from rival e-commerce platforms like Amazon, which it sued this month for "anticompetitive conduct." By that point, however, it had laid off most of its staff, and in late December, it announced plans to liquidate its inventory to pay its creditors before eventually ceasing operations.

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But Michael Feinberg, chief technology officer for HP's Network Storage business, also said that the company still must work on brand recognition in the storage segment eight months after its merger with Compaq.

"We've been successful since the merger in leapfrogging a number of companies to get to No. 1," Feinberg said, pointing to exact IDC market share data. "HP is the leader in storage."

Feinberg addressed the RBC Capital Markets System Area Network conference in New York. His comments jibe with recently published IDC studies that estimated HP's market share in the networking storage business at 26 percent. The next closest competitor, IBM, maintains 20 percent market share, according to IDC.

"We realized in May there were lots of questions on how we would execute," Feinberg said, referring to when the HP-Compaq merger closed. "We had a plan on how we would continue to grow and show the benefit of the plan very crisply."

Feinberg said HP has put a priority on doubling "off-platform" storage sales into accounts that have rival hardware from vendors such as IBM, Dell Computer and Sun Microsystems.

Feinberg told CRN that while he did not yet have data on how much of HP's storage installed base lies in multivendor solutions, he said the Compaq storage products and business have helped bring the company into these accounts.