Article created by: Denis Krotovas
With technological innovations seemingly breaking the speed of sound, it’s easy to believe that we’re always on the verge of revolutionary breakthroughs. The hype machine tells us that thing X or Y is going to “change the game”, and, most of the time, many of us fall for it, especially at the early-adopter end of the bell curve.
Someone asked an online community, “What was supposed to be ‘The Next Big Thing’ but totally flopped?” and netizens didn’t hold back with their answers. From NFTs to Cybertrucks, here’s a collection of some of our favorites.
More info: Reddit
BituminousBitumin reply:
It couls have been if Google hadn’t fumbled so hard. It came about at a time when Facebook was making some very unpopular changes. The platform was actually really good.
Cyber truck.
WeeklyMath9 reply:
They’re just so ugly. I always felt like the design team stopped like 25% in and said “we’re done”
Segway.
vikki_1996 reply:
SNL news once discussed the Segway launch by saying ‘this amazing invention is going to revolutionize…the way people get hit by cars.’
Y2K.
peternormal reply:
Y2k might have been the last time we listened to scientists as a society.
It happened, and it would have been bad, but we knew it was going to happen and put resources into fixing it ahead of time.
As someone who worked in banking software at the time. It was a big big deal, the fact that nothing happened was a testament to executives and the government actually believing computer scientists and spending money to fix the issue.
AI. Mark my words.
Tech companies are already tempering expectations.
wagwa2001l reply:
AI shares a lot in common with Flat Earthers – it doesn’t have the ability to distinguish good information from bad and so mostly just regurgitates garbage that confuses some people into thinking it’s intelligent.
Windows phone.
Rikers-Mailbox reply:
Had one, loved it. I was so disappointed that MSFT whiffed the smartphone afte being the leader for so long.
Russell Brand. When that dude hit the States he was shoved down our throats from all angles. Good to see he failed.
Virtual reality, like two or three times.
LordsOfFrenziedFlame reply:
I wouldn’t say it flopped. It comes in waves, with each wave bringing progress
Minidisk.
BlacksmithInformal80 reply:
Early 90’s my uncle took me out with him to rent some CDs (yeah you could rent CDs), and he pointed to some stand and said “those are the wave of the future. They’ll replace CDs in a few years”. They were mini disk. The first last and only time I had ever heard of them.
Augmented reality glasses.
eac292625 reply:
They still have limited use in warehouses. We use them to quickly show item info and they’re really cool for that.
Democracy.
Carma_626 reply:
I wouldn’t say democracy failed. Of all the forms of government it seems to be the lesser of evils.
No regime is going to be flawless. As long as humans are involved, with their greed and self interest, it is virtually impossible to have a fair and equal government body.
If only the general population weren’t so completely stupid…
Curved screen TVs. I thought I was in the future the first time I saw one of those.
I would argue Blockchain never attained its promise of a transformative technology. I would not be surprised if Bitcoin ends up in the same place.
HD DVD lost out to Blu-ray pretty spectacularly.
No-Author-2358 reply:
The picture quality of Blu-ray is amazing. So much better than DVD.
I remember when I was in middle school during the Bush administration we were told about how great hydrogen fuel cells were going to be and how every car would run on them. Haven’t heard much about hydrogen fuel cells since.
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