🐿️Pinecone Attack

c/bad-tech-predictions

12

wyatta30•1d ago

Classic mistake just fell into the same trap

So this guy I used to work with back in 2018 told me I should never trust cloud storage for anything important. He said it was a fad and everyone would be back to external drives within 5 years. I actually listened to him and kept all my business photos on a couple of hard drives. Fast forward to last month when one of those drives just clicked and died. Lost about 3 years of client work. My buddy is still using Google Drive with zero issues. Has anyone else had some old timer give you advice that sounded smart but was actually terrible?

9

evanpalmer•1d ago

Spent 4 hours trying to fix a printer that wasn't even plugged in

So I'm teaching this 6th grade tech literacy unit, right? And this ancient HP LaserJet in my classroom won't print anything. I'm checking network settings, reinstalling drivers, restarting the thing 3 times. After about 4 hours of messing with it across two days, a student points out the power cord is barely hanging out of the back. I felt like an idiot. The weird thing is, those old articles from 2010 said printers would be obsolete by now, yet here I am wrestling with one in 2024. Has anyone else wasted way too long on something stupidly obvious?

2

jones.grace•1d ago

That 1999 article claiming the internet would collapse by 2002 still cracks me up

I found a dusty old magazine in my dad's garage last month with an interview where some expert said online shopping would never catch on because people need to touch things before buying... I run my pest control business now and 60% of my supplies come from Amazon. Has anyone else run into predictions that aged this badly?

13

nathan_torres34•2d ago

Heard a guy at the gym say smartphones would never replace his flip phone back in 2007

Was scrolling through old tech forums last night and found a thread from 2007 where this dude was dead serious that touchscreens were a fad. He argued flip phones were more durable and you could snap them shut to hang up on people dramatically. I remember thinking the same thing when my friend got the first iPhone - I swore I'd never give up my physical keyboard. Wonder if that guy ever caved or if he's still out there flipping his phone closed.

12

olivia573•5d ago

Just hit 10,000 hours on my old Singer sewing machine from the 70s

Ngl I found the thread counter hidden in the manual last night and it blew my mind that this thing has outlasted three smartphones and two laptops. Has anyone else checked the hours on their older gear and been shocked?

16

faith_perez•8d ago

I trusted a 2007 article saying paper maps would be extinct by 2012

I was driving through rural Montana last summer and my phone had zero signal for like 60 miles. That old article from a tech blog swore GPS would make paper maps completely pointless by 2012. Well here I am 12 years later stuck because I threw out my dad's state road atlas. Had to stop at a gas station in Butte and paid $8 for a paper map that saved my whole trip. Anyone else keep a backup map after getting burned by bad predictions like this?

25

wyattbennett•10d ago

Remember when everyone thought we'd all be flying to work by 2020?

I was just as guilty as anyone, I bought a book in 1999 about future transportation and it had us commuting in personal hovercrafts by now. What finally convinced me it was nonsense was watching a single traffic jam stretch for 10 miles on I-75 last Tuesday.

23

ramirez.daniel•10d ago

Hit 50 bad tech takes saved in my bookmarks, debating which is worst

I reached 50 bookmarked bad predictions from old magazines and blogs. Got 2001 PC World saying dial-up would still dominate 2020. Then there's a 1981 article claiming nobody would want a computer at home. Which take is more laughable, the one that missed broadband or the one that missed personal computing? I'm leaning toward the home computer one because family photos and Netflix exist now. What's the most wrong prediction you've got saved?

14

anthony989•13d ago

That old article saying the internet would kill TV in 5 years still makes me laugh

I was cleaning out my garage last weekend and found a 1998 magazine with a tech columnist swearing cable TV would be dead by 2003 because of streaming. I remember reading that as a kid and thinking wow my grandpa's gonna be so bored. Did anyone else grow up hearing predictions like this that aged worse than milk left in a hot truck?

5

mason209•19d ago

Old Wired magazine article said we'd all have robot butlers by 2020

Found a 2008 Wired article in my dad's basement claiming we'd all have humanoid robot butlers handling chores by now lmao. I actually built most of my home automation around that prediction and ended up with a janky Roomba that bumps into walls. Has anyone else wasted money chasing some old tech prediction that never happened?

24

blair_davis50•19d ago

That 2009 article claiming Netflix would never replace Blockbuster

Found an old blog post from 2009 where a guy said Blockbuster would survive because people like browsing aisles. I was at my dad's house cleaning out his office and we both had a good laugh. We counted 6 Blockbuster closures within a 10 mile radius of his town in Ohio. Anyone else keep a folder of these old predictions just for the laughs?

8

jason_fisher4•19d ago

That time my uncle swore tablets would kill laptops by 2014

Back in 2011 my uncle who worked at Best Buy told me to dump my laptop and just use an iPad for everything. He said by 2014 nobody would own a laptop anymore because tablets were the future. I almost believed him too until I tried typing a 10 page paper on that thing. Took me 3 hours and I wanted to throw the iPad through a window. Now here I am 12 years later typing this on a laptop while my iPad collects dust in a drawer. Anyone else get suckered into that early tablet hype?

25

campbell.nora•20d ago

My 2013 smart fridge finally gave up the ghost yesterday

The screen that was supposed to order groceries just showed a blue error code and then went black. I had to manually reset it by pulling it out and unplugging it from the wall, which took me 20 minutes. Has anyone else had a 'smart' appliance fail in a way that made you feel dumber?

23

foster.ruby•21d ago

Thought my fiber optic internet install would take 30 minutes, nope

Called Xfinity to get hooked up at my new place in Denver, and the guy on the phone swore it'd be a quick 30 minute job. Three hours later he's drilling through my wall and pulling cable from a box two blocks away because the existing line was dead. Anyone else have a utility tech massively underestimate how long something would take?

4

riverf34•1mo ago

That one week in 2002 when everyone thought flying cars were coming next year

I found an old Popular Mechanics from November 2002 in my dad's garage. There was this big article about how by 2005 we'd all be commuting in flying cars. They had these wild drawings of traffic lanes in the sky over Chicago. Made me laugh because I was stuck in a 45 minute traffic jam just yesterday. Anyone else find old tech predictions that feel like they're from a different planet?

6

matthew_baker•1mo ago

Wasted $200 on a "revolutionary" pocket modem that still needs a landline

I got suckered by one of those old 1990s predictions that portable internet was just around the corner. There was this gadget called the PocketNet modem I dropped $200 on back in 1996. The ads showed a guy emailing from a beach, but in real life you had to plug it into a phone jack at a motel. I tried using it at a bus station payphone once and got yelled at by some lady waiting to call her mom. The thing worked maybe two times before I gave up and sold it for twenty bucks at a garage sale. Anyone else fall for those pre-smartphone portable internet dreams?

27

theagarcia•1mo ago

Overheard a guy at the coffee shop say VR would replace all movie theaters by 2025

I just overheard this guy at a Starbucks in Austin telling his friend that by now we'd all be watching movies in VR headsets and cinemas would be a thing of the past. He was dead serious too, said it was a sure bet back in 2018. Here it is 2025 and I still had to wait in line for 20 minutes for a popcorn last weekend. Has anyone else noticed how these predictions just ignore the fact that people actually like going out and sharing an experience together?

20

sandraf84•1mo ago

Finally got my ancient Wi-Fi router working after 3 factory resets

Honestly, I picked up this old Linksys WRT54G from a garage sale for $5 thinking it would be a fun nostalgia piece. Tried to set it up last weekend and the thing just bricked on me every time I hit save. After three factory resets and a firmware downgrade from a 2008 forum post, it finally booted up. The connection speed is like 15 Mbps max, way slower than my phone hotspot. But for a daily driver from 2005, it actually runs my Pi hole and an old printer without crashing. Anyone else mess with retro networking gear just to see if it still works?

27

avery_walker30•1mo ago

Found a 2005 article saying the iPhone would flop because nobody wants a touchscreen keyboard

I was cleaning out my dad's old bookmarks folder on his PC last weekend and stumbled across this gem from 2005. It was some tech blog predicting the iPhone would crash and burn because physical keyboards were superior and people would hate typing on glass. The funny thing is I remember thinking the same thing when I first saw the iPhone in 2007. I legit told my friend it looked like a toy. But fast forward to today and I can't even type on a BlackBerry keyboard without getting frustrated. It took me like 3 hours to dig through all those dead links and cached pages but it was worth it for the laughs. Anybody else have old predictions they personally believed that turned out hilariously wrong?

20

ryan_stone•1mo ago

That old magazine from 1995 said we'd all have flying cars by 2020

Found a box of Popular Mechanics from the 90s in my uncle's garage last month. One article predicted flying cars in every driveway by now. Also said we'd be commuting via personal hovercrafts. Meanwhile I'm stuck in traffic watching a guy eat cereal in his Honda Civic. The article even had a mockup of a flying Ford Taurus. Looked like a pizza box with wings. They got the internet part right I guess but totally whiffed on the transportation stuff. Anyone else find old predictions that make you laugh?

18

caseyc30•1mo ago

Remember when people said we'd all be using VR headsets for work by now?

I just found an article from 2016 where some tech CEO said by 2025 everyone would be in VR offices. Meanwhile I'm still squinting at my 7 year old monitor and using a $20 webcam for Zoom calls. My coworker tried using a VR headset for a meeting last year and ended up bumping into his bookshelf three times before giving up. Anyone else remember when the metaverse was supposed to replace everything?

20

riverwhite•1mo ago

Spent 4 hours chasing a plugin conflict that ended up being a wrong PHP version on my staging site

I was debugging why my ecommerce cart kept breaking on checkout, and after swapping out every single plugin one by one I found out the host had me running PHP 7.2 instead of 8.1. The error logs never even hinted at the version mismatch, it just showed generic 500 errors. Has anyone else wasted an afternoon on something this basic after assuming the hosting was fine?

5

the_amy•1mo ago

I finally hit 100,000 views on a blog post from 2014 and it made me think about all the 'mobile is dead' takes

So I was checking my old analytics and found a post I wrote back in 2014 about how flip phones were making a comeback. It got 100,000 views over the years which blew my mind. But the funny part is all those articles from 2010 saying 'mobile internet will never work, screens are too small.' Now my phone does everything my desktop did back then. Some of those predictions aged like milk. Anyone else dig up old stats that make you laugh at how wrong experts were about mobile adoption?

3

webb.christopher•1mo ago

That 1999 Wired article predicted we'd all be wearing VR helmets by 2010

I had to choose between buying a VR headset last year or sticking with my old flatscreen for gaming. I picked the flatscreen because I remember reading that Wired piece calling wearable displays the future by 2010. Twenty three years later and I still don't know anyone who owns one. The article said we'd ditch monitors completely by 2005. My 2023 decision feels exactly like betting against that hype all over again. Anyone else ignore VR because of old predictions that flopped?

8

beth_hunt•1mo ago

TIL that old article predicting tablets would kill paper books by 2015 was hilariously wrong

Found a 2010 Wired piece in a box of old magazines where they said tablets would make paper books obsolete in 5 years. I work in construction and back then I bought right into it. Now here in 2024 I stack more physical books on my nightstand than ever. My local bookstore in Portland still does twice the business they did in 2010. Has anyone else kept a collection of these old predictions just to see how silly they got?