Yes, but how would one feel if one had to admit failure. We must put feelings before data! /s

I agree that there is some point that one needs to say failure. However from how I read the OPs description, it sounds like the product has not been marketed in any way other than a single Show HN. That is clearly a marketing failure. It possible points as a business failure but does not mean it is a product failure.

I think we need more data to state definitively.

I couldn't agree more. I have a friend who's pushing fifty years old and he's been trying to make money with the same product for nearly thirty years now. I see his friends on Facebook constantly encouraging him, and telling him that he does great work.

He doesn't.

His product is atrocious.

They're just being nice and he should've thrown in the towel twenty-nine years ago. His income is literally less than $100 a year. (I believe he's on SSI disability now, which is how he gets by.)

With all due respect only making 1 post on HN is not in my opinion effective marketing.

There's a lot more to marketing than getting on the front page of HN.

OP, I suggest you read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg, and The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, and consider if you've successfully identified who your customers are, and a valid channel for reaching them. Further ask if you've correctly identified a problem that those customers will pay to have solved, and whether or not your product actually solves that problem. How do you do that? Talk to customers. All of this stuff is in the Steve Blank book.

Also consider reading The Mom Test[1] by Rob Fitzpatrick.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+mom+test&inde...