I don't disagree with your point.

It's interesting to imagine if there's some kind of middle ground where products could be launched without the pretense of them being permanent? I suspect at least some of people's frustration is that X or Y was pitched as something serious, which then grates some when it gets canceled.

But maybe you can't launch a product without pretending it's going to be real because it'll be dead on arrival?

...where products could be launched without the pretense of them being permanent

Yeah, it's what Google used to do by releasing everything as "Beta". Gmail was in Beta for 5 years with millions of users.