Nikon discontinues entire Nikon 1 line, including cameras and lenses. Consumers who bought into Nikon’s 1″ sensor system stuck with a dead end lens system.

As seen in this chart, the camera line de facto existed for about 4 years, from its introduction in September 2011 to its last new camera introduction in late 2015:

Source: Has Nikon Shuttered Its 1 Series Line of Mirrorless Cameras?

After 2015, they milked money from their customers before abandoning them.

Nikon executives repeatedly said during the past 3 years that the Nikon 1 line was not dead. And then in July 2018, they killed it, abandoning users who had invested in the Nikon 1 lens systems.

Many of the Nikon 1 lenses had a design defect – they used a very tiny nylon gear to control the lens aperture. Over a fairly short time frame, these gears began to dry out, crack and break, resulting in the aperture being set to the maximum closed position – and rendering the lens unusable.

Some private parties set up shop to fix the lenses (notably MYDC in Taiwan) by replacing the damaged gears with a tiny brass gear that will not break. Nikon screwed up with the cheap nylon gears, ultimately leading to all of their lenses eventually failing. Rather than address it, they killed the entire product line and said to the customers “Hah hah – sucks to be you! And oh, we no longer support or repair any Nikon 1 products!”

I owned several Nikon 1 cameras and lenses. I’ve had 2 of the lenses repaired by MYDC and am using some other DX lenses with an adapter. Otherwise, my Nikon 1 system would now be useless.

This impacted me and I will not again buy a Nikon product. At NAB, I spoke with every camera manufacturer except Olympus. I mentioned that someone needed to produce a camera body with a software development kit. All – except Nikon – were interested in the idea.

The Nikon rep told me with a straight face that Nikon would never allow third party products to potentially damage the Nikon brand name.

I could hardly contain my laughter – you mean like how the iPhone was ruined by third party app developers? Hah hah!

That exchange told me Nikon management are dimwits. Since then their revenue plummeted and it was not because of third parties harming the Nikon brand – it was because Nikon shot its brand in the foot.