Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Explain Which Overly Hyped Products Failed Spectacularly

aquamarine shoe is placed on top of sliced peaches
Irene Kredenets on Unsplash

Not everything is a good idea and not every invention should be placed on the market.

But you'll never know what can be a success without seeing if people like it.

It may sound like a billion dollar idea but in the end, you may take a loss.


Redditor istrx13 wanted to discuss the products that went nowhere, so they asked:

"What product was supposed to be the next big thing but wound up failing miserably?"

Life is all hit or miss.

Especially when inventing.

Transport Revolution

"The Segway was once touted as a revolutionary transportation device, but ultimately failed to live up to its hype due to its high cost, limited practicality, and safety concerns."

fulfillmen25

Drunk Fried Chicken GIF by Ethan Barnowsky Giphy

Shattered

"Google Glass."

doublebankshot

"I dropped I think it was $1400 on it back then, and when I got them it was immediately obvious that they were going to be a huge disappointment; everything from UI to battery life to comfort to photo quality was so bad that my first impression was that they felt almost like a joke product rather than an actual product manufactured by a tech company, not even an early developer version."

ds445

A great idea...

"Zune was supposed to be the death of Apple's monopoly on MP3 players."

HoopOnPoop

"Zune actually wasn't a bad piece of hardware. It was just that by the time it came out, iPod was already entrenched. It was around the same price, so it couldn't undercut Apple on pricing. ZunePass was actually a pretty great idea, years before Spotify."

Wulfbak

"My favorite thing about Zune is that it featured what was actually a pretty cool and interesting design feature wherein a user could send a song to another Zune user for free, but Microsoft chose the single worst possible name for this feature, calling it 'squirting.' Zune kids back in the day had to be like 'Ayyy bro that song is fire, squirt that at me.'"

HostileSkittles

Fly High

"Hoverboards. I think their primary problem was their lack of ability to hover. Also 300 ish dollars for something that goes as fast as... legs is just dumb."

IceClimbers_Main

"Their main downfall was the many, many cheap and dangerous clones from china. When the OG hoverboards were too expensive for most, the big Chinese companies saw a hole to get into the market making them for pennies on the dollar by removing safety devices, using cheaper batteries, lower gauge wire, etc. It was for the worst."

ptthree420

Entertainment Options

"Curved TVs… oh and 3D TVs we’re a thing for a while too!"

Sherlockssocks

"I own a curved 3D TV. I've probably used the 3D less than a hundred times. I think if they'd pushed the spilt screen gaming thing a bit more they would have sold more."

Signal-Morning7669

Shake Your Rump Television GIF by Beastie Boys Giphy

Those curved TVs freak me out.

I just liked my DVD

"Laser discs...? I think they were called. Picture a DVD the size of a record."

Drawn-Otterix

"Laserdiscs were successful, they're just an obsolete format now."

Born_Anteater_3495

digital audio spinning GIF by Feliks Tomasz Konczakowski Giphy

Cleansed

"Olestra/Olean. It was going to transform all junk food into low fat. Instead, it transformed lower GI tracts."

1800sMan

"OMG this! Around 1998 I worked for a huge ad agency on Madison Ave in NYC that had the Pringles account. They were pushing that Olestra trash at the time and obvi it was to be part of the campaign we were creating. One day I grab a can and start munching away."

"Well 15 minutes later I feel like I’ve swallowed a hand grenade and start racing to the bathroom where I proceed to destroy the bathroom for a good half hour. It just would not stop. I swear I saw a demon that day while emptying my poor bowels. Never ever again with that Olestra garbage."

bruh_wut69

Guess What?

"Oh man this is really specific to my career field in childcare."

"Smart diapers. Yep, diapers that will inform you on your app when your child uses them. I don’t know anyone who seriously considered getting these. But I remember seeing ads on my social media for them. Guess what? No one wanted them."

Onlyfansnanny

"As a law student, my son worked on getting the patent and prototype on these a little over ten years ago. At the time, however, they were being marketed to nursing homes. IDK whatever happened with that."

Ok-Bee1579

The Mess

"Meta."

SuperScario

"I finally decided to look up what meta was on Youtube a few months ago and I swear I thought I was watching some Nintendo wii game or something. My jaw hit the floor when I realized that's what meta actually looked like, billions of dollars for a Nintendo looking world, what a f**king dumpster fire."

twister55555

Bute Sized

"Quibi."

chyna094e

"Part of it was the worst timing imaginable. The service was meant to be 'bite sized' entertainment, something you could watch in 5 minutes while standing in a queue or maybe a couple segments on a public transit ride."

"They launched the first week of April 2020. Remember all the queues you were standing in and public transit rides you took then? Yeah, the same as everyone else - NONE because 95% of the population was stuck at home for 6 months!"

alinroc

Minis...

"Spore. It was hyped as a game that went from spark of life to galactic conquest. It's just a bunch of mini games."

rosanymphae

College Hoops Sport GIF by NCAA March Madness Giphy

I missed the spore phenomenon.

Oh well.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Donald Trump; Martin Luther King Jr.
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/Getty Images; Jack Sheahan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Trump Ripped After Forcing National Parks To Drop Free Entry On MLK Day And Juneteenth For Infuriating Reason

President Donald Trump was criticized after the National Park Service announced it will be dropping Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth for next year's calendar of free-entry days and adding Trump's birthday, which happens to fall on Flag Day, on June 14.

Last month, the Department of the Interior unveiled changes to what it now calls its “resident-only patriotic fee-free days,” expanding the calendar to include new dates like the Fourth of July weekend and President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday, while dropping others that had honored the department itself, including the Bureau of Land Management’s anniversary.

Keep Reading Show less
Screenshot of Juanita Broaddrick's tweet overlayed against a picture of the J. Crew sign
@atensnut/X; Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

MAGA Is Melting Down Over A Pink J. Crew Sweater For Men—And Our Eyes Can't Roll Hard Enough

MAGA fans are melting down over a $168 men's sweater from J. Crew with a fair-isle collar, claiming, in yet another example of the idiocy of the culture wars, that only liberals would actually wear it.

We know what you're thinking... Really?!

Keep Reading Show less
Robert Garcia; Marjorie Taylor Greene
WWHL/Bravo; Daniel Heuer/AFP via Getty Images

Dem Rep. Has An Idea For A New Line Of Work For MTG After She Leaves Congress—And It Would Certainly Be Something

California Democratic Representative Robert Garcia was elected in November 2022 and even before being sworn in, he was locking horns with one-time MAGA darling and Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

For years, MTG was best known as the QAnon conspiracy theory-spewing, State of the Union heckling, crossfit hyping, Trump ride-or-dying, anti-LGBTQ+ racist MAGA minion from Georgia.

Keep Reading Show less
Donald Trump Jr.
Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

Don Jr. Sparks Outrage After Startup Company He Backed Scores Massive Contract With Pentagon

Donald Trump Jr. is facing criticism after The Financial Times reported that Vulcan Elements, a startup he backed, scored a $620 million government contract with the Department of Defense.

The company said the deal falls under a broader $1.4 billion collaboration with the federal government and ReElement Technologies aimed at scaling up U.S. magnet production and strengthening the domestic supply chain.

Keep Reading Show less

People Describe The Deepest Internet 'Rabbit Hole' They've Ever Fallen Down

Who amongst us hasn't wasted HOURS of life surfing the web for things we couldn't help being intrigued by?

Going on the internet for one quick look at a sale, then staying up until sunrise trying to uncover a 50-year-old unsolved murder mystery is totally normal.

Keep Reading Show less