Agreed. I can get behind the concept of MVP, but 'lean always' just doesn't have the evidence. Was Henry Ford 'lean'? IBM's big mainframe business... 'lean'? Were windmills 'lean'?

Nearly all big inventions are the opposite of lean - some people went and built something that nobody had thought of using before and those inventions took off. If you had just put up a survey asking people if they want a 'noisy, horseless carriage' you would have gotten a resounding no.

A lack of clicks on a random signup page with just a blurb doesn't imply the product will fail in the market. It could imply that users don't understand the value or a number of other things.

However, a MVP failing pretty much does imply failure, so I'd personally say throw out 'lean' and stick with MVP for anything 'pushing boundaries'.