Okay, I can see that interpretation and I apologize. I was going for a 'next stage of things' which for businesses of this form (single product / modest revenue / digital assets) have a small number of exit routes for the developer.
#1) (and most common in my experience) Is to sell the business to a larger aggregator which allows the acquirer to grow the surface area of what they do (in this case sell ads, but it could be anything like service dentist offices or market business services). This pays the founder some money and let's them move on to different things.
#2) The founder/key contributor takes on a senior role at a larger company and their product becomes either an open source project or briefly a product of the larger company.
#3) The founder moves on to something else and product support goes away, updates don't happen and eventually operating systems have moved on and the product just doesn't work any more.
In all cases the 'intent' is that the founder needs to grow or do something different or their needs have changes (like having a family) and so their priorities shift. Life goes on and things evolve.
#1) (and most common in my experience) Is to sell the business to a larger aggregator which allows the acquirer to grow the surface area of what they do (in this case sell ads, but it could be anything like service dentist offices or market business services). This pays the founder some money and let's them move on to different things.
#2) The founder/key contributor takes on a senior role at a larger company and their product becomes either an open source project or briefly a product of the larger company.
#3) The founder moves on to something else and product support goes away, updates don't happen and eventually operating systems have moved on and the product just doesn't work any more.
In all cases the 'intent' is that the founder needs to grow or do something different or their needs have changes (like having a family) and so their priorities shift. Life goes on and things evolve.