You don't have to respond, but I figured I'd use this as a quick springboard to post my thoughts on what were the causal components of 4e's demise.
I know people who hated it want to lay the blame exclusively upon the game itself, but (a) nothing like this is ever one thing and (b) its just not true.
If I had to name the factors, in no particular order, they would be:
* The actively hostile hobby environment I described above. Its not just the 1st order impacts of a certain segment of players not liking the game, its the 2nd order effects of them not only not promoting it and bringing in casual players (creating a positive zeitgeist) but actively pushing casual players from trying the game or (when they did try it) enjoying it (actively creating a negative climate for playing). Making that completely hostile climate so utterly visible to Hasbro and WotC cannot be undersold.
* A tragic murder/suicide that derailed the VTT.
* The game needed about another 8-10 months (probably 9 exactly, given how polished DMG2 was and how great and coherent releases after that were) of further polish before release.
* Some bad branding ("ze game remains the same") or poor language in the DMG ("skip the gate guards and get to the fun" vs simply the established indie axiom of "drive play toward conflict").
* The fact that the game was fundamentally systemized to be an abstract, Action-Adventure, Scene-Based game (all conflicts, both combat and non-conflict) vs a granular, serial exploration game or a "GM as lead storyteller and metaplot-friendly" game or a "FFV/Appalachian-Trail-Attrition" game. In terms of classical play, the game was most friendly to a Moldvay or RC approach to play (which is why most Moldvay and RC players typically enjoyed it). It could certainly be drifted to any of those other styles, but the game tech had an unfamiliar bent for people who were exclusively D&D die-hards so attempts for those people to hack it led to frustration.
* Likely unreasonable RoI requirements by Hasbro. The game was hugely successful, despite all of the above issues, but apparently Hasbro had unreal $$$$$$$$ in mind.
* Though I thought the initial DMG1 was excellent, it could have used more clarity on certain issues (which was probably either intentional to try to portray "ze game remaining ze same" or it was the product of too many voices involved in writing/editing) and some better instruction in focused areas (how to aggressively change the situation in Skill Challanges by creating interesting thematic complications and how to Fail Forward).
* If the game was actually released after the Cortex+ games and the PBtA games (particularly the Forged in the Dark games), instead of before them, I think a much wider grokking of 4e would have occured due to exposure to those games.
* Like the one above, being developed and released during the 5e period would have led to a huge influx of app assistance and VTT assistance in gameplay (like for Gloomhaven...which is ENORMOUSLY successful given its a one-man operation).
* Some very specific design choices (like putting +1/+2 etc on weapons/armor/neck pieces rather than just folding that in with the game's maths and just having magical items with interesting powers/abilities exclusively).
* And finally, coming into being 6-7 years later in the "Being a Nerd is Cool!" cultural era wouldn't have hurt.
