[yowzadave]

This general story outline is very common: some initiative that has a good idea at core has poor execution; it “fails” in its popular perception; the initiative’s ideological opponents claim that the failure is a result of the original idea being bad.

Just a cautionary tale about how execution can be equally as important as being right about the main idea.

There are many examples I could cite for this pattern, but one simple one: the street that runs past my apartment was adapted to provide separate bike lanes. Great! But it was done in a non-sensical way, resulting in a one-way road that dead-ends into another one-way road, requiring cyclists to cross from one side of the street to the other in the middle of the intersection, and motorists who continually violate the posted signs and turn through the flexible barriers. Now everybody hates the new road, cyclists and drivers alike.

Bad execution kills good ideas!