"Color.io will be winding down over the coming weeks and the online service will fully shut down on December 31, 2025. Until then, everything will continue to run as usual, and Pro users will receive access to a downloadable offline version they can keep using indefinitely... I want to be transparent about why this is happening. Color.io isn’t shutting down because it's struggling. But after 10+ years of running everything alone, I’ve reached a point where I need to grow in ways that aren’t possible as a solo builder. I have an opportunity to work alongside a company whose products have shaped and inspired me, to work on creative tooling at a scale I could never reach on my own. This is an opportunity to work with people I admire, on tools that will reach far beyond what I could build alone."

I'm not a customer, I've never heard of color.io before. It looks like a professional product, and appears to have an audience. So I'm curious about why the owner isn't selling it or open-sourcing it. I appreciate the transparency in the post, but it seems an odd decision. I'm sure it's more complicated than I'm imagining.

Any more detail? Is color.io a competitor to the owner's new opportunity?

For his sake I hope he doesn’t end up regretting it when the job isn’t as rewarding as he thought, or he gets laid off after a few months and doesn’t have a project to go back to.

I don’t have enough context to really judge I am sure, but this is a story that happens often enough for me to already think he’s making a massive mistake.