Death by a thousand cuts, also known as creeping normality, happens when change evolves at such a slow place that no one bothers too much when systems finally fall out of use.

US scientist Jared Diamond once used the term to explain when all the trees on Easter Island, in the Pacific, were cut down by its inhabitants: "Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance."