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Except that Diaspora is alive and delivered on its project.

https://www.joindiaspora.com

Didn't deliver on destroying Facebook though, which was (generally) what backers (half-heartedly) hoped for.

Not saying they didn't succeed, just that there are similar lessons about expectations there.

Destroying Facebook was never what they promised. They promised an alternative. What they delivered was in line with the amount of funding they received.

There's a code base that's functional, and available for anyone. The project wasn't a failure. It just didn't take.

Not to mention active, ongoing development, including regularly adding new features and a several hundred thousand strong community. It's not a Facebook-killer, but it's a reasonable social network as-is.

People are used to big software budgets producing nothing.

It's an entirely different value proposition failure when they paid $100 expecting to receive a light bulb or gaming console only to end up empty-handed.