[fullsage]

One of the best product post-mortems that I've seen is the RethinkDB post from Slava:

http://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html

He does a great job describing how the "worse is better" essay plays out in the modern world, and how it played out for them in the OSS DB market.

[ScottBurson]

Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13421608