The life and death of cool projects - what makes some projects succeed while others disappear without a trace

[eternalStudent]

During the tenure of Handmade Network and the extended universe, many cool projects were announced only to die a few years later, some of which even had a cool demo in Handmade Seattle.
It might be interesting to look at both the successes and failures and see what lessons we can learn from them.

Ambitious ideas ignites our imagination, inspire us, and bring us hope for a better tech future, but it should be remarked that failing to achieve very ambitious results is the default, and not a sign that should stop aiming high.