Technology

Desertec failed due to geopolitical considerations (basically the Europeans didn't want to have their next energy sourced from a region outside their control and therefore stopped funding the project)

"Bitcoin will never take". I mined a few at the very beginning when it was easy, out of curiosity, and didn't bother backing up because it was useless anyway. Ahem.

I thought that AMDs move with Ryzen being heavily multi core architecture was dumb, and that they'd fail like bulldozer

The Wii. Previous gen console specs. Silly gimmick controller. Best selling peripheral was a step.

Most popular shit in the history of everything.

I never thought tablet computers would become popular among the mainstream public.

When the iPad first came out, it was functionally worse than even the cheap netbooks, and I didn't see much purpose in the larger screen with phones getting bigger and bigger every year. Wireless display was also already available, so I envisioned people would just cast content to a TV if they really wanted a bigger screen. Even reading articles etc seemed to be already covered by eReaders, which were already available for half a decade by the time the iPad released.

Little did I know how brain rotted people would become.

Tbh I personally still don't see the utility in most tablets, except in specific niches like in digital note taking/drawing, or industrial cases where it becomes a glorified HUD.

Not me but my dad. He was friends with a guy who was loosely related to someone relatively high up at Google when they first went public. His friend offered him 500 shares at 50¢ a pop. His life right now would have been wildly different.

I wrote a term paper once about how twitter would enable citizen journalism and lead to a more informed public and a healthier, more direct democracy. I got an A.

I was a pretty huge fan of Zune and I still miss it.

You were pretty correct about Apple, it got saved by Microsoft who kept it alive to skirt monopoly laws.

I thought blu-ray would supplant DVD-RW for storing and transferring data, including for buying software. Much like DVD replaced CD, which replaced diskettes. Turns out both were replaced by cloud and streaming, with a short interlude for USB sticks.

Al still have their niches, but buying software and storing data is pretty much all online now.

Physical buttons on phones would win out over gimmicky touch screens

When Steam first appeared (and was required to play Half-Life 2 IIRC), I thought that was a ridiculous idea to have a middle man to play a game. Well, what do I know, everyone loves Steam now (yet hates on other launchers).

In the late 90s I saw a piece demonstrating an optical 3d storage system that had a capacity about an order of magnitude greater than the at the time brand new HD DVD and Bluray discs. I assumed this clearly superior format that already had a working demo would obviously kill other optical media. Turns out nobody could figure out how to manufacture one at a price anybody was willing to spend.

Around 2000, graphene was a very hot material. I was pretty excited by it and thought carbon-based high-Farad capacitors would essentially replace lead acid and lithium ion batteries in most consumer electronics within a decade, maybe two.

In the mid-nineties I passionately believed that the internet would democratize information and usher in a wonderful new era of well-informed critical thinking and general enlightenment. Basically the opposite has happened.

I thought cameras on phones were a gimmick. To be fair, they were pretty low quality back then but I still use it to remind myself not to be too overconfident because boy was I wrong.

Having been on a few Segway tours I was surprised when they stopped making them. Easy to learn, fun to ride. Eventually they will age out and be gone. I wouldn't buy one for myself to have at home, but for whizzing around sightseeing when on holiday they're great.

I thought people would learn how to use computers.

It seemed as if most of the millennial generation in wealthy countries did learn to some degree and I expected it to be even more true for younger generations. Those more sophisticated users would enable more sophisticated and flexible applications. Technology would empower individuals while weakening corporations and governments.

Instead, the most reliable recipe for popularizing tech is to dumb it down. Millennials represent a peak of digital literacy (in wealthy countries) and those younger tend to have weaker technical skills.

My parents made us a Betamax household well into the mid 90s; always relegated to the small shitty section of the video rental store.

In the 2000s I wanted to avoid another format pushed by Sony, so I went with HD-DVD over Bluray... sigh. I even got the Xbox 360 external HD-DVD drive.

I sold all of my Apple stock because they wanted to make a phone and I thought that would end poorly, so I should take my profits while I could.

Around 2009 I predicted that very soon, Linux smartphones you can plug into a docking station to use as a desktop PC would become the standard consumer computing device.

Minidiscs would endure and crypto would fail.....I still believe both will bw true in the end....

When the 3DS came out I was sure it would be a stepping stone to 3D TVs that didn't require glasses.

3D TVs basically died out by now.

It's crazy to think this now (since I'm so heavily into free software) but I actively chose a Windows Phone for my first smartphone, and thought it would take over the market from iOS and Android.

To be fair, it did have some cool features: it let you aggregate all the different ways of contacting people into one interface (the dream of many a tech person since the beginning of time!), it had a connection with facebook so you could see status updates/photos from your friends (in the contacts app of all places!), and I thought the live tiles and design language were really cool.

Despite even my hatred of Microsoft, I still have fond memories of that phone.

I thought Apple/most smartphones would never move to USB-C, or away from proprietary chargers. Pleasantly surprised - thank you EU.

I thought wireless controllers were going to be a fad, or at least garbage in their reliability/connection strength.

I thought VR was finally going to take off as the next major gaming experience when the Vive came out. Unfortunately it remains niche.

I thought Linux was going to be unusable for gaming/mainstream use cases for much longer, but Valve has made huge strides on that with Proton, and OSS devs making things like Heroic for other stores has been awesome. Also shoutout to KDE for, well, everything. Krita, KDE connect, Plasma. LibreOffice has also come a very long way.

I also thought we’d never get another steam controller. Also pleasantly surprised.

I thought drones were just going to be a fad, but they've become huge, especially in terms of government and corporate surveillance. I should have realized the way it was going when America started using them militarily. American military inventions almost always end up becoming popular consumer products/applications.

For reference, the first generation of IPhone actually preceded the IPod Touch, but the Touch reached my friend group first. Thus my reaction when I first heard of the IPhone was more or less,

"The IPod Touch is a gimmick, and now they want to make it your phone? Why the hell would anyone want a touchscreen phone in your pocket? Touchscreens are finnicky at the best of times, break at the slightest provocation, and a whole computer in your pocket would cost an absolute fortune. There's nothing wrong about just carrying an Mp3 player and phone separate in your pocket; this is just Apple selling an overpriced toy to their fanboys. Touch-screen computer-phones will never take off."

Boy do I feel like an idiot now.