I think the idea was that they could demonstrate and develop vertical landing technology while selling the vehicle (tourism and some freefall science experiments). I think they've done two or three tourist flights using it, and maybe a couple more science flights. They lost the booster a year or so ago and have been making sure they fix the problems since.

In practice, SpaceX's approach of starting with an orbital rocket and adding reuse worked a lot better, given they started later.