Tu-160 can't cruise supersonically unlike Tu-144 or Concorde and they really have very little in common.
Tu-144 was doomed by the whole system of socialism - and not really in a bad way. In a classless Soviet society there were no people for who paying 5x for the ticket to get 2.5x speed would be justified just because there was no mass inequality. In the west, there were some of those people and for a while (1980s and 1990s) that was enough for profitable operation of planes that came for free - but even then, that wouldn't work out if the airlines had to pay for planes.
If was an expensive toy West could somehow afford for a while, but Soviet Union couldn't.
As someone who grew up in the USSR at the very bottom, it was definitely not classless. It was the epitome of corruption - get into a position of power by any means possible, and start lootin'.
This sort of cynical approach to government and lack of dedication to public service is exactly what I see now taking root in the United States. Get to the feeding trough and grift your heart out. It's f--ing tragic.
I’d suggest the book red plenty for an interesting set of perspectives on the Soviet system. The Soviet Union was not a classless society by any stretch.
It's worth remembering that one reasons for Concorde's limited success was regulatory manipulation by companies like Pan-AM, TWA and Boeing to initially block the most profitable transatlantic flights to the US.
That limited initial orders and almost killed the project until it was slightly relaxed enough to allow some flights to New York.
Tu-144 was doomed by the whole system of socialism - and not really in a bad way. In a classless Soviet society there were no people for who paying 5x for the ticket to get 2.5x speed would be justified just because there was no mass inequality. In the west, there were some of those people and for a while (1980s and 1990s) that was enough for profitable operation of planes that came for free - but even then, that wouldn't work out if the airlines had to pay for planes.
If was an expensive toy West could somehow afford for a while, but Soviet Union couldn't.