Why did the Touch Bar fail?

It mostly got in the way?

I have one on a 2019 MBP and found it was constantly misfiring as my fingers would hover over the top row of actual keys.

Is it the “touch bar” or “control strip”? MacOS UI refers to it as both.

The system preference is buried under Keyboard, and even there refers to it as both a touch bar and control strip.

I can't program it to do anything useful I'd want to do. I can pick from prechosen keys or actions.

Or I can zero it out as I’ve done (mine shows volume, brightness and Siri which is as minimal as I could make it).

Neat idea, poorly executed.

Wonder if it would have worked better and been better accepted as a strip along the bottom of the screen, rather than an intrusion on the keyboard.

Because keyboards are for typing. They meant to have haptic and not visual feedback, otherwise you need to pay attention to both the keyboard and the screen. That's like a context switch for your brain. It breaks your flow.

You couldn't use it without looking at it. You can type without looking. You can mouse without looking. And if you use a touchscreen well ... The touch bar needed you to look at it.

Because it was a solution in search of a problem.