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Indeed, I had finally taken the plunge on Carousel for its killer feature: Freeing up space on my 16GB iPhone while having the photos instantly available if I needed them. Carousel was a breath of fresh air; it had no issues with backing up photos over WiFi or cellular data, unlike the main Dropbox app. Now it's back to the unreliable and slow Dropbox app for photo syncing.

While I too dislike when stuff I use is shutdown, there's another possible way to look at this. Maybe the product lived a much longer life than it would have otherwise, had the original creators abandoned it after failing to make sufficient money on it directly.

Are these really even products if they have no plans or even really options for monetization? Mailbox was a free app with no ads and no freemium features. It was doomed from the start. Although Kudos to the founders there that were able to turn a good idea, a great marketing strategy, and a couple months of work from a small team into an immediate 9 figure exit. Those founders knew what they were doing.