> And rudeness can be very called for in response to evil.
You have constructed quite the strawman to argue against the myth, well done.
The point being that while less than ideal it isn't unsuccessful in itself. Extremes are useful for extrapolation - even if it will never reach that point it is helpful to have the worst in mind to be vigilant of the flaws it may start to drift into.
How one handles human failure is important, just as it is with handling bad input in code.
A quack no matter what redeeming factors they may have is in the "wrong" even if his potions help via placebo effect or sheer accident like treating unrecognized dehydration simply by being water based.
Indefinitely was defined in the sense of viablility in flows. An actual business who provides a real product for sufficient margins can sustain itself indefinitely. Others may do better or circumstances may conspire against it but there is nothing stopping its success. It is a matter of ratios of course - right but rude may succeed with a sufficient base but if he alienates too many they are still doomed.
One which is fundamentally based on something wrong like say Theranos would collapse inevitably. Even if the entire world bought in. No matter how much they tried to work on fingertip blood testing they would find it inaccurate because the composition isn't the same as veinous blood. If they never lied about their viability it would merely be a noncriminal failure that ends when investors pull the plug or they run out of money. Unless they shifted to something viable successfully of course in which case they are no longer wrong.
Ironically noninvasive scanning of blood would have more potential for research success - while a very hard problem there is at least the data hidden within to be decoded. Alt-Theranos that shifted to it may still go bankrupt before they get a viable product from the tech not being ready but they would be on the right track and success before others were ready would pay off. Doctors loved noninvasive blood pressure measurement and would love a second by second view of blood chemistry.