One reason why it’s hard to predict the fate of a new technology is that it’s too tempting to focus on bugs in an early version. We forget to look for the bigger underlying idea that will become apparent as the problems get solved.
Take something as ordinary as a digital watch. As absurd as it may seem now, when the first ones emerged in the early 1970s, people wondered whether consumers would be able to make the mental leap to telling time by digital numbers. Besides that, the contraptions had problems that made them seem as if they might become a passing fad.
