In February 2021, I purchased a security device designed to safeguard long-term holdings. It worked well at the time, and for the first few months everything behaved exactly as expected.
Then the company behind the device spun off – the original staff founded a new company, with a new product line. Somewhere on their blog, they offered early adopters a 50% discount to migrate. No email. No letter. No direct outreach. If you didn’t happen to read the blog at that precise time, you never knew the offer existed.
The mobile apps kept functioning, so there was no visible reason to assume trouble ahead.
Four Years Later: The “Everything Still Turns On, But Nothing Works” Problem
Fast-forward to the present. I finally pull the device out again to use it. The companion app launches – but a critical piece of information is missing, making the device effectively unusable.
I research. I find a firmware update. Install it. No change.
I find a newer app the successor company released. Install that. Same problem.
I tried third party software that could communicate with various security devices similar to the one I had, but it could not establish any meaningful connection.
At this point I’m holding a piece of hardware that technically powers on, yet blocks me from managing a six-figure amount of value sitting behind it. The device didn’t fail mechanically – the support layer failed around it.
Negotiation Attempts
While digging further, I discover the original blog post offering 50% off the new generation – the one I never knew existed. I also find that the new company now advertises only a 20% discount for users coming from a completely different (competing) product, not from their own legacy product line.
So I write them with competing products I was considering, asking if legacy customers qualify for the earlier 50% offer, and provided the link along with forwarding a copy of my original receipt.
They reply with a 20% code. No acknowledgment of the earlier offer.
Evaluating the math, 20% off their replacement product made less sense than simply upgrading to a competitor with no dependence on proprietary apps or centralized services.
I wrote back and explained why I would be leaving – and which product I purchased instead.
The next day, a new message arrived:
“As a gesture of our gratitude, we’re pleased to provide you with a special 50% discount code.”
Lessons Learned
- Silence is a form of deprecation.
If a company changes its product line and doesn’t proactively notify owners, it’s only a matter of time before something quietly breaks. - Dependence on proprietary services is a time bomb.
Hardware that requires a specific app, service, or company to exist in order to remain functional is not truly “offline” or “secure”, even if the marketing says otherwise. - Leverage comes from alternatives.
The 50% offer didn’t arrive until I made it clear I switched to more expensive and robust vendors. Without competition, customers have no bargaining power. - Always plan for the day support disappears.
The device did not fail – the ecosystem around it did. Future purchases should assume that ecosystems, not just electronics, have a lifespan.
If nothing else, this was a sharp reminder: longevity doesn’t come from the strongest hardware – it comes from designs based on open source code and open standards / protocols that still work when the company, the app, and the cloud vanish. The original product was advertised as if this scenario wouldn’t impact customers – but it did.
