Funnily enough, I put that blog post in a sibling comment and described why I think it's bad advice. Why don't you think Skype is a perfect counterpoint to Joel's argument? I mean, Skype basically died because they didn't throw it away and start from scratch. Like the parent comment said, competitors came up, and what used to be a million line giant project was about a bajillion times easier when WhatsApp came along.

Yes, it's absolutely true getting the working bits correct is hard, by consigning yourself to a slow death doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

Skype is 20 years old.

Tech has advanced enormously in that time.