Beacon was very quickly dumped after the massive backlash that was brought up upon it. I have no doubt that had there not been the massive public resentment they would have quickly iterated on it and made it into a very viable and interesting product.

The parent's post is quite correct. They could've spend months polishing beacon and it would've still been doomed to failure. Instead they put it out there and when it didn't get the desired response they canned it. If the comments system gets any traction whatsoever (and doesn't become a pr disaster like beacon was) I fully expect them to very quickly polish the product and make it very usable for people that aren't the early adopters.