This seems like revisionist cope. Ariane 4 and 5 were extremely successful in the commercial launch market in the 90s and 00s before SpaceX trounced them. Now

This seems like revisionist cope. Ariane 4 and 5 were extremely successful in the commercial launch market in the 90s and 00s before SpaceX trounced them. Now that they're floundering, it's not because they failed to keep up but because they never meant to be successful in the first place? That's just not true.