It's sad no one ever paid for the service, but if not don't talk to customers or potential customers (people who pay, not "users" i.e. in the sense of people that do not pay), you'll never know what they want. Generally, it's only when people part with cash that you know you are providing value.

However, major kudos for releasing the code and design docs so others can try some tangent, along with the post-mortem so others can avoid similar pitfalls. That's seriously cool and not something I often see people do for projects they invested so much in. Thanks.