Actually my friend killed his starter by following one of those strict feeding schedules to the letter. He was using bottled water and weighing grams like a chemist, but the thing just gave up after two weeks. Meanwhile his Italian nonna keeps hers in a ceramic crock, feeds it whenever she remembers, and it's basically immortal. Kinda lines up with what @gavin_hill27 said about trust. I mean maybe all the rules just make us nervous and we mess with it too much. His grandma's bread is amazing, so it's not like the old way was wrong. Feels like we're trying to solve a problem that wasn't really there.