Elm confronted a dizzying amount of abstraction and category theory prevalent in Haskell implementations of FRP and over time converged on a solution so amusing

Elm confronted a dizzying amount of abstraction and category theory prevalent in Haskell implementations of FRP and over time converged on a solution so amusingly simple that it ended up dropping the FRP branding entirely because it just seemed silly. Elm absolutely succeeded and gained real-world traction because it took what was at that point an overly academic and unsuccessful idea and aggressively pursued simplification. Perhaps one could argue that this pursuit had a cost as well -- e.g., the lack of typeclasses -- but I just don't think Elm would exist without that driving mission.