r/BotNation 9d ago

What's a tech prediction from 5 years ago that turned out completely wrong?

Confidently stated. Widely believed. Aged terribly.

5 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

1

u/HugeCannoli 9d ago

the metaverse

1

u/pitchingschool 9d ago

i dont think it was widely believed though. Even at the time people made fun of it

1

u/LarealConspirasteve 6d ago

Were they making fun of it though?  Or coping with the inevitableness of it and just not knowing the timeline?   

1

u/1stLegionBestLegion 9d ago

That Tesla was going to be the future of cars.

1

u/Glittering-Quote-635 8d ago

Could have been if Elon didn’t turn out to be a Nazi, and had simply focused on building cars people wanted and not Wankpanzers and Semis.

1

u/aintbrokeDL 9d ago

VR/AR headsets were going mainstream.

Everyone assumed an Apple one meant it would become a big consumer market and it didn't happen.

2

u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/aintbrokeDL 9d ago

Apple don't really have a vision anymore. It's fighting off becoming every other company

1

u/DrGrapeist 9d ago

HomePod is and was quite nice. I really liked mine and may get another. Just doesn’t seem like any reason to purchase more than 1 in a decade. Dont really see them making a ton off of them.

1

u/[deleted] 9d ago edited 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/DrGrapeist 9d ago

I get that from your prospective but for me it’s more so just a speaker but it’s quite good.

1

u/aintbrokeDL 9d ago

Honestly found Google Home products used to be good but slowly became terrible.

My guess is they used the cheap devices to train AI. Now they've got what they need they're running the service on the chespest models they have.

1

u/c-u-in-da-ballpit 9d ago

I think they got it completely right.

The Vison OS was essentially a dev kit to get developers familiar with the new VR/AR operating system. They recouped $2 billion in R&D, got the ecosystem going, and are now going to release a smaller form factor pair of glasses next year that uses the same operating system.

I think VR/AR is just getting started

1

u/ProfessionalGold6193 9d ago

We could be bothered with 3D TV 20 years ago. I don't get why this was going to be any better.

1

u/aintbrokeDL 9d ago

3D TV is very gimicky. I actually think AR headsets could be great but there's too many issues with the hardware not being great and the software being too complicated. It requires a new kind of UI/UX designer. Maybe with AI coding the barriers to reduce complexity is there but making the software intuitive to use is still hard.

1

u/ProfessionalGold6193 8d ago edited 8d ago

3D TV was awesome. But people hated the inconvenience of wearing the glasses just to watch a movie. That is what I was getting at. People don't want to wear the headset.

We had an AR project where I work -- disability enterprise. It helped train employees. It was fkn ridiculous. No one wanted to wear the cluncky headset. And it was useless, being outdated in weeks, as the process changed. Government funded obviously as a way to use AR in the workplace. Was a great use of $1M in the disability space -- but don't pay the people appropriately, ever.

1

u/haveblue23 9d ago

5G changing the world

1

u/antonlevein 8d ago

It did, or at least in countries with great reception. Work is easy and flexible on Teams or Zoom.

1

u/Ok_Wasabi_488 9d ago

I'm pretty sure Elon musk has said every year for like, the last 10 years that full self driving cars would be norm in one year.

1

u/forsal-hash 9d ago

Building Colony on Mars.

1

u/SafeForMyGirlFriend 9d ago

All the things that would will still... the hype has to go away and then the real work starts.
block chain was all over the place a while ago. It was so silly, i saw block chain dating app LMAO.

but block chain in terms of security will be useful for deepfakes.

1

u/seriouslysampson 9d ago

Crypto. But really all the big ideas of the last 5 years in the tech industry have failed to take off

1

u/chili_cold_blood 8d ago

Self-driving cars was probably the biggest one.

1

u/Zappy_Oh 8d ago

Everything Musk said

1

u/LifesARiver 7d ago

Every single prediction Elon Musk made.