You know what would make this less of a waste? Release the source (whatever is reasonable without leaking sensitive information) under a permissive license.
It could potentially provide tremendous value for someone else solving for an overlapping problem - and strengthen the recognition of the author. There are no requirements to give a single second of your time to it after that. Just dump it on some free place online. No need to provide contact details, if you prefer not to. Maybe someone will eventually rummage through the dump, find it and appreciate it, maybe not. Maybe someone will figure out a way to use parts or insights from it into a crowdsourced public good which does not rely on VCs, ads, or paying customers.
There are countless valuable learnings that are lost when founders abandon their projects and just wipe their efforts from the earth.
Imagine how much further and faster we could progress as a species if there was a culture to release your abandoned projects like that.
It could potentially provide tremendous value for someone else solving for an overlapping problem - and strengthen the recognition of the author. There are no requirements to give a single second of your time to it after that. Just dump it on some free place online. No need to provide contact details, if you prefer not to. Maybe someone will eventually rummage through the dump, find it and appreciate it, maybe not. Maybe someone will figure out a way to use parts or insights from it into a crowdsourced public good which does not rely on VCs, ads, or paying customers.
There are countless valuable learnings that are lost when founders abandon their projects and just wipe their efforts from the earth.
Imagine how much further and faster we could progress as a species if there was a culture to release your abandoned projects like that.