Blew their chance at what? And what trade-offs would have been necessary to take that chance?
Those questions are at the heart of this talk, and I think make it clear that there is a much larger range of definitions for "success" than is often assumed. And that perhaps we should question the default definitions. Perhaps the decisions, if not the ones you would have taken, are not so obviously bad (or are at least understandable) with that in mind?
Tools people complain about And tools nobody use.
Elm had a massive shot at making the big time circa 2015-2016. If they hadn't blown that shot, yeah, they'd be the kind of tool a lot of people use and complain about. But what I see when it comes to Elm is a lot of people who don't use the language shaking their heads in frustration at what they see as missed potential, while a handful of people who do use the language insist that it's perfect and unchangeable and that Evan could never ever make a bad decision, all the people who disagree must just be short-sighted.