“Why would you decide this?” The development team genuinely couldn’t believe what they were reading. For weeks, they had been carefully working towards phasing out a mobile app that had long outlived its usefulness. The plan was clear, the rationale had been shared, and the work was already in motion. Then, with a single email, the decision was reversed. No discussion. No follow-up questions. No input from engineering. It was a textbook example of what happens when decision-making drifts too far away from the actual work. The further management is removed from day-to-day reality, the harder it becomes to make decisions that still make sense. This is the story of a mobile app that received an entirely unnecessary second life.
The beginning of the end
The mobile app had never really been a first-class citizen. The company wanted a presence in the app stores, and it wanted it fast. As so often happens, the fastest possible solution was chosen: a wrapper. A Flutter app that did little more than load the existing web application inside a web view. From idea to production in less than a week. The app appeared in the stores, the box was ticked, and everyone moved on, satisfied that the problem had been "solved".
Not long after, strange bug reports started to trickle in. Issues that the team couldn’t reproduce locally, no matter how hard they tried. Because one of the biggest customers was affected, the investigation dragged on longer than usual, consuming time and attention that could have gone elsewhere. Eventually, almost out of frustration, one of the engineers inspected the user agent tied to a bug report and noticed something odd: the issue wasn’t coming from the regular mobile browser at all, but from the web application running inside the wrapper app. Once that door was opened, more and more bugs could be traced back to the same source. The wrapper app was the common denominator. Still, because the app was never considered a priority, fixes were reactive. The result was predictable: a subpar user experience and a growing pile of fragile patches holding things together.
Then came the annual reminder from Google: update your SDK version or you won’t be able to ship updates anymore. Suddenly, the neglected app demanded attention again. More work and more time spent on something that added little to no value. At that point, the engineering team started asking the obvious question: Why does this app still exist? It wasn’t bringing new value to users; it was a consistent source of bugs due to the web view, and keeping it alive required ongoing effort just to stand still. Was there still a valid reason to keep this around?
Backing the end with numbers
We knew this wouldn’t be a purely emotional discussion, so we came prepared. Analytics told a clear story. If a significant portion of users relied on the native app, sunsetting it would be irresponsible. But the numbers showed something else entirely. Only 15% of mobile users were using the app. The remaining 85% were already accessing the platform through their mobile browser. In other words, a small minority of users was responsible for a disproportionate amount of work and complexity, while a perfectly viable alternative was already in place for everyone else. We presented this data to the relevant stakeholders and explained the trade-offs in plain terms. On that basis, we received the green light to phase out the wrapper app.
Yes, yes, yes … no
The team prepared the rollout carefully. A message was added to the web application, shown based on the user agent, explaining that the mobile app was being phased out and that users should access the platform through their mobile browser going forward. An unstable platform with growing technical debt was finally being retired.
The day the change went live, an email landed in the inbox. A manager had noticed the message and objected to the decision. Although they had received the same explanation weeks earlier, they hadn’t reacted then. Now that the phase-out was actually happening, they wanted to stop it. The reason was simple and, at the same time, frustratingly vague: the company needed an app in the app store. When asked why, there were no metrics, no customer feedback, no strategic arguments. Just a feeling. “It’s important for us as a company.”
It’s risky to lose connection
It sounds absurd, but it happens more often, especially in organisations with multiple management layers. When decision-makers lose touch with the product, opinions start to replace evidence. Decisions drift towards gut feeling and HiPPOs, the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion, rather than facts. If you’re in management and are on the receiving end of decisions that feel completely wrong, it’s worth pausing before reacting. Ask yourself what your disagreement is based on. Is it backed by data, usage patterns, and real trade-offs? The further we get from the work, the easier it becomes to mistake intuition for insight. That’s how unnecessary second lives are granted to products that should have been allowed to quietly disappear.
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