You're just hung up on your definition of "release", which is "release for production use". "Release early release often" doesn't dictate how you release your a

You're just hung up on your definition of "release", which is "release for production use". "Release early release often" doesn't dictate how you release your application, just that you expose it in some form (private beta, public beta, pre-release) to the real world for vetting. Projects that fail to vet their assumptions are more prone to poor data structures and over-engineering.