I stumbled across this old magazine in my dad's garage that claimed Segways would be the main mode of transport in cities within 6 years, but after watching one guy almost wipe out on a curb at the mall last week, do you think tech predictions from that era were just overly optimistic or actually delusional?
Found it in a box at my mom's house last weekend. It was from a tech magazine my dad kept. They said online shopping would never replace catalogs. Also claimed email was just a toy for college kids. Makes me laugh now since I order everything through my phone. Has anyone else found old predictions that aged worse than milk?
I was digging through some old magazines at a flea market in Omaha last weekend and found a prediction from 1956 that said by the year 2000, robots would clean our whole house while we relaxed. Cost me 3 bucks for the magazine but it was worth it for the laugh... I just spent my Saturday scrubbing the bathroom floor myself. Has anyone else run into these old tech predictions that were way off base?
I was digging through some old computer magazines at a flea market in Des Moines last weekend. Found a 1981 issue of InfoWorld where Bill Gates supposedly said 640K is all anyone will ever need. Turns out he never actually said that, it was a misquote from someone else. But the article itself predicted personal computers would top out at 2MB of RAM for businesses. I bought the magazine for $3 and it's now sitting on my desk as a reminder. Has anyone else found a bad prediction in print that just made you laugh?
I was digging through some old boxes at my parents' place in Portland last weekend and found this magazine article my grandpa saved from 1954. The writer said computers would never be in homes because they're too complicated and people don't need to calculate that much. I laughed at first. But then I talked to my neighbor who's 78 and she told me she still writes checks at the bank because she doesn't trust online banking. It hit me different because for her generation, the prediction was kinda right. She literally has a smartphone but uses it like a flip phone. The article even said computers would require special training like a trade school, which is basically what coding bootcamps are now. Has anyone else found old tech predictions that accidentally got parts right?
Back in 2019 my friend Dave from Cleveland kept telling me crypto was the future and I told him he was throwing money away on pretend coins. Fast forward to 2021 when Bitcoin hit $60k and he sold a chunk for a down payment on a house while I still had my cash sitting in a savings account earning 0.5%. Has anyone else had a tech prediction totally backfire on them like this?
I was just digging through some old tech magazines from 2015 and found this article claiming by 2025 everyone would have virtual desktops in VR for their 9-5 job. Instead I'm still squinting at a 24 inch monitor in my home office in Tucson. Anyone else remember believing this stuff or am I just getting old and nostalgic for bad predictions?
Back in 1998 he clipped an article saying online news was a fad for geeks and would die out by 2005. Fast forward to 2024 and he gets all his news from Facebook like everyone else. What do you think made the old guard so confident the web was just a passing trend?
I found a clipping from a 1995 newspaper where some tech writer claimed 'the internet is a fad that will never replace the daily paper.' Now I get all my news from a phone that fits in my pocket. How do we keep taking these confident predictions seriously?
I used to laugh at that old Business Week piece predicting nobody would watch scheduled TV by 2005, until I realized last month I hadn't touched my cable box in 14 weeks. My tipping point was when my kid asked what a commercial break was and I couldn't explain it without sounding like a grandpa. Anyone else have a bad prediction that actually sort of came true in a twisted way?
I remember reading some tech blog back in 2010 that said by 2015 no one would buy physical books anymore. tablets were gonna take over everything. i was super skeptical even then because I love the feel of a real book and so do a lot of my friends. fast forward to now and I still see people reading paperbacks on the bus every day. my local library in Austin still has a huge physical section and it's always busy. sure ebooks are a thing but they didn't kill paper at all. what really convinced me was seeing my nephew pick up a hardcover at a garage sale last summer and spend hours reading it. the prediction was just way off. has anyone else seen a old take like that that totally missed the mark?
I found a old CNN article from 2010 predicting that by 2020, 40% of the workforce would be completely remote. Joke's on them, my company's CEO still demanded everyone back in the office 5 days a week until March 2020. I wasted $600 on a fancy office chair and dual monitors in 2015 thinking I'd be working from home any day. Turns out the only thing that changed was how many spam calls I got about 'the future of collaboration.' Anyone else buy gear for a work-from-home life that never happened until the pandemic forced it?
I was digging through some old magazines in my shed last week and found a 1999 issue where an expert swore by 2005 everyone would get all news online and print would be dead. Now here I am still getting the local paper delivered every Wednesday and Sunday because my 70 year old client insists on seeing her landscaping ad in print. Anyone else still dealing with clients who ignore digital and stick to dead-tree media?
It had a section saying email would never replace fax machines because people need paper copies... paid $2 for it just for the laughs. The guide also claimed the "information superhighway" would only be useful for niche researchers. I popped it in my old laptop and scanned the pages, the predictions are hilariously bad. Has anyone else stumbled on old tech predictions that make you wonder what people were smoking back then?
I remember reading that prediction back then and thinking no way, but now I just drove 30 miles to a mall that still exists because Amazon failed to deliver my order on time and the store actually had it in stock.
Used it for two weeks straight until the app told me I missed my molars while I was literally holding the brush against them in a mirror, so I learned these things are just fancy timers with random guesswork built in - has anyone else caught these apps being dead wrong about what you're actually doing?
I went to this little tech meetup in Portland back in 2017 (it was at a coffee shop with terrible lighting) and this dude spent 20 minutes explaining how blockchain messaging would make email obsolete within 3 years. He was super confident, had a whole slideshow on his laptop and everything. Said email was a "legacy system" that couldn't compete with decentralized ledgers. I actually bought into it for a bit and started messing around with some encrypted messaging apps. Fast forward to 2025 and I'm still sending emails every single day, getting spam from sketchy stores, and waiting for replies from coworkers. The only thing that changed is I now have three different crypto wallets with like $12 total in them. Anyone else ever fall for a hot take at a local meetup that turned out to be completely wrong?
I was cleaning out my dad's basement last month and found a PC World from December 1999 with an article predicting the internet would collapse under its own weight by 2002. The writer was dead serious, said online shopping would never take off because people didn't trust credit cards on the web. Now I run a moving company and book 60% of my jobs through my website. Anyone else got old tech predictions they found that aged like milk?
I was cleaning out my dad's garage last weekend and found a torn out magazine page from 1998. It had this big prediction from some tech expert that by 2010, flying cars would be as common as minivans. He even threw in a number like 2 million units sold by 2012, which is just hilarious now. Meanwhile I'm sitting in traffic on the 405 for an hour every day watching drones deliver tacos but not a single flying car in sight. Did any of you have a favorite bad prediction from back then that you remember? I'm trying to find more of these old articles to share.
My buddy Dave texted me a scan of some old Popular Mechanics piece claiming we'd be offloading laundry and dishes to robot servants by now, and I laughed until I remembered I just spent 45 minutes arguing with my Roomba about a shoe lace. Anyone else got a stack of these predictions that aged like milk?
I found this old tech magazine in a waiting room that claimed by 2010 everyone would have computer glasses as normal as watches. Funny how we're almost 15 years past that date and I still see maybe one pair of smart glasses per month at the grocery store.
I ran into a guy at a garage sale in Lincoln, Nebraska last summer who was trying to sell a box of old Popular Mechanics magazines for $50. He pointed to a 1995 issue that said flying cars would be in every driveway by 2015. I asked him if he still believed that and he just laughed and said 'my driveway still has a muddy pothole in it.' It sticks with me because he was so serious about selling that magazine as if it was some lost treasure. Has anyone else found an old prediction that made you chuckle?
I used to side with the old articles saying computers could never make art because they don't have emotions. But after spending 6 months using AI tools to brainstorm ad copy for a local bakery in Austin, I realized those predictions missed how much humans still curate and edit the output. Has anyone else found that the old 'machines can't be creative' takes got debunked by how we actually use this stuff?
Back in 2009 at a small accounting firm in Tulsa, my boss told me putting financial data on the 'internet cloud' was just a fad and we'd all be laughed out of the industry. Fast forward to last year, and that same firm paid me to migrate their entire server setup to a cloud platform because their on-prem hardware kept failing during tax season. Why do people get so stubborn about tech changes that end up being obvious winners?
The writer predicted nobody would ever buy groceries or cars online, and that made me rethink how I see new platforms like social media when they first pop up. Has anyone else found an old bad prediction that actually helped you spot a real trend later?