For some people knowing that you disappointed people ("a fan" would be right word in case of Stephenson) that believed in you so much could be easily worth of committing seppuku or something.

For all of the threads recently discussing failure and founder depression, you flippantly suggest someone should kill themselves for "disappointing some fans". Have you ever failed as ambitiously and publicly as Neal Stephenson did here? Maybe you read the story and thought he did not sound as apologetic as you'd like, but having read the rest of the backers' notes I'm pretty sure that he and the rest of the team have put their lives into this for years.