Observations from the ~war~ maintenance zone

Over at the work site, a few folk have once again brought up the concept of putting services that they run in some form of "Maintainance Mode" / "Sustainability Mode" / "Abandon-it-out-in-the-woods Mode" because even the prettiest toys get old. I was asked if I had opinions, and after having done this for around 30+ years, boy golly do I. Below is the addendum I added to the document. I'm sharing it with you all because if you work in software, and particularly if you do anything related to running a servic