These responses contain a lot of condemnation (based mainly on price) of a product that these people have never used. Building a premium first product to fund further development is a common approach (think Tesla), as is creating a premium niche in an otherwise commoditized market (Apple).

While it does sound like costs/scope got out of control, please remember that price is oftentimes determined fairly far down the development path, and that the ending price may not reflect the initial plans. They may have just pushed scope too far and then backed themselves into a corner. Once the money is spent on R&D it's not like you can get the money back just by developing a simpler product.

Startups are hard. Hardware is hard. Products are hard. Security is hard. This is a site for people who want to build things. Please stop pissing on the grave of a failed attempt to build something new, especially when your information is limited to a Medium post by the CEO who just had to fire all of his employees days before Christmas. That hardly counts as an objective or substantial source of information.