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
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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
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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.
