Sunk-cost honesty — the literature warns that "overemphasis on avoiding the [sunk-cost] fallacy can lead to premature abandonment of worthwhile projects"; but patience is rational ONLY when the underlying site is genuinely good

Claim: The cost-of-misreading-the-ramp argument cuts both ways:

• Premature abandonment converts a temporary paper loss into a permanent realised loss; the sunk-cost literature explicitly warns that "overemphasis on avoiding the [sunk-cost] fallacy can lead to premature abandonment of worthwhile projects."
• Patience as a doctrine is the textbook sunk-cost trap when the underlying site is fundamentally weak (no search demand, thin/undifferentiated content, no product-market fit). Throwing good money after a bad asset is not "holding through the trough" — it is the fallacy itself.

The economically correct test is forward-looking: does the future payoff from continuing beat the next best alternative use of the same money and attention?

Source: Compass_artifact research document, June 2026, synthesising sunk-cost literature.

Confidence: Industry-consensus on the principle.

Caveat: This is the most uncomfortable framing for vendors and clients alike — it explicitly says "sometimes the right answer is to stop." Pair with the no-impressions-by-6-months diagnostic (Rule: if there is no impression / keyword-footprint movement by ~6 months despite clean technical SEO and genuine content, re-evaluate the site itself — do NOT just wait longer).