I also think disconnecting the concepts of “pocket computer” and “always-on two way radio with location tracking and internet connectivity” are things you could put in different physical devices.

Did it fail? I hate headlines like this. Just because it isn’t popular now, doesn’t mean it didn’t make progress in its space.

Torvalds wrote git for the Linux kernel, and then GitHub popped up because most other projects couldn’t handle the decentralization. Interestingly to OP’s frustration, they were using a proprietary VCS before that, and people were just as frustrated about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#History