I've always associated it with the classic “riding into the sunset” storytelling trope, which is often used to symbolize the end of a journey or of a chapter of the rider's life.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
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At the end of the day, I always thought it was because... It was the end of the day 😅. The end of a cycle.
This seems right to me. It's the lone gunman riding into the sunset at the end of a Western. The big action has concluded and the end is in sight.
It's the Hollywood version of "it ain't over until the fat lady sings." Which is a questionable phrase by today's standards but shows how we come up with weird proverbs surrounding stuff ending.
I think that's supposed to indicate a careless badass.
Because usually you ride off in the morning into the sunrise. To ride into the sunset means you'll be going out at night, when you can't see and navigating is magnitudes more difficult (though also it's easier to hide, if you're a wanted fugitive)
The "day" for that product is coming to an end. Tomorrow will bring a new product.
Shut down sounds abrupt, sunsetting implies there's a gradual process.
Sunset is “no end date but we’re no longer maintaining or investing except hotfix.” That is, riding off into the sunset. An honorable retirement.
In contrast to EOL - “we are going to be/we have shut down as of 2030-01-01”.
Don’t get me started on deprecate vs depreciate.
I apprecate your concise explanation.
It's a common term because (almost) all humans understand how the sun works.
The sun is setting, but it's not going to immediately become dark outside. The light from the sun still refracts even when you can no longer see it
It's not about the sun - the sun is the programming efforts, and they're moving on to somewhere else. It's about the light, the software that came from the sun, and it'll still exist but diminish naturally
Because business have an inherent need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to corporate speak.
Sounds like a synergestic game changing strategy, it is historic, unprecedented really.
That's a €30 thousand sentence if I have ever seen one.
I mean when a company like Google announces they are shutting down support for ChromeOS in 2034 it's a slow ease out of letting people know ahead of time you wont get updates in 8 years. If they called it a bullet to the brain I would expect updates would no longer come to the product immediately.
Sunsetting to me implies that existing users may continue using it for an indeterminate amount of time, with or without ancillary services, but that the team/business has moved on and no one should pick it up. There may, or may not be, accommodations for existing users to either continue using, or migrating to another service.
To continue in analogy land, the sun has set, the store is technically still open because there are people inside, and they are not being kicked out, but you shouldn't, or won't be able to, come in as a new customer. It also implies that the people in should know it is getting dark outside and should maybe find their way home (or to the bar).
A shutdown instead implies a hard deadline after which the service will no longer work.
To give examples:
- an email service that is sunset may still allow existing users to receive or send emails, but will not allow new sign up. It may, for example, retain the email services to facilitate migrating to another provider, and otherwise allow setting up address forwarding. If it was a paid email account, then I would expect to continue paying, or at least for the service to continue up until renewal time, with renewal impossible.
- an email service that is shut down will stop allowing users to receive and send emails by the shutdown date. I would not expect email forwarding to another provider. Archive access may or may not be provided after the shutdown date. Service will terminate. Any money exchange for this service would end at the specified dates, and refunds, if necessary, should be handled for anything after the shutdown day.
You’re overthinking it Fred.
No stupid questions, Jared
"Sunset" is the end of a time period. When the sun rises again, it's a new day, the beginning of a new journey across the sky. If the Debut of a game is the "Dawn" of an era, the end of its life-cycle is the "sunset" of that era.
Just take away the part of the sun rising.
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
Well medically it's a term to describe dementia.
Ie, the president. The body's internal clock becomes disconnected from the brain, and they stay up all night, then sleep in the day. That is why the old bitch keeps falling asleep if no one is actively talking about him or praising him.