the end of development came due to lack of revenue stream.Why did people stop buying? There are lots of paying developers who believe that a manufacturer dooms a product if they subject it to years of "damning with faint praise" and negative profiling which is what happened to VFP starting in 1995. IMHO it's amazing VFP lasted so long which has to be a tribute to customers (us) and to a small group inside MS that kept VFP going long after it was supposed to have starved to death.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1