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40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead

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Remember the Segway craze of the early 2000s? Mall cops were zooming down walkways with them, and guided Segway tours became a hit in popular tourist destinations. But then, seemingly overnight, they disappeared. And now they’re nowhere to be found, as electric scooters have quickly become the preferred mode of transit for pedestrians who don’t feel like walking.

There’s a new “next big thing” every year, but unfortunately, they don’t all live up to their own expectations. Redditors have recently been discussing “next big things” that massively flopped, so below, you can look back on products and companies that, in hindsight, probably received too much hype. Enjoy scrolling through, and be sure to upvote the things you had completely forgotten about!

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#1

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Not entirely relevant, but I liked the trend where everybody wanted the smallest cell phone possible. For 20 years cell phones got smaller and smaller. Often being the main selling point of the phone.

Then all of sudden you could watch videos on your phone, and almost overnight the trend reversed to “larger is better”.

anon , Thomas Kohler/flickr Report

Final score:

242points

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#2

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead The “[pandemic] baby boom” People thought that during lockdowns we’d see a bunch of pregnancies because couples would essentially have nothing else to do. Instead we saw people isolate more even after the lockdowns ended and fewer people are dating at all now let alone having kids. When inflation started to increase you also saw more people choose to delay having kids due to increased costs and some residual effects of shortages (like the baby formula shortage we had in the US last year)

Icy_Difference_2963 , Kei Scampa/pexels Report

Final score:

193points

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#3

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead 3D television/movies

Bot_Fly_Bot , cottonbro studio/pexels Report

Final score:

188points

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#4

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead NFT's

Altharion1 , pinguino k/flickr Report

Final score:

184points

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#5

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Those chips that were “fat free”, except they made you have violent diarrhea and a**l leakage because of the Olestra used in them.

bonafidehooligan , Robyn Lee/flickr Report

Final score:

179points

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#6

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Segways were supposed to be the car killer.

nothinga3 , Gustavo Fring/pexels Report

Final score:

177points

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#7

Internet of Things.

I'm an engineer, and while I was in college people in my field have been banging that drum.

Turns out we just need a good enough refrigerator, not an internet connected one.

NighthawK1911 Report

Final score:

173points

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#8

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Google glass

fnex101 , Dan Leveille/Wikimedia Report

Final score:

167points

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#9

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead When the Windows Phone was unveiled, Microsoft held a genuine funeral procession for the iPhone.

Famannot34 , Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr Report

Final score:

143points

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#10

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Blockchain. I couldn’t stop hearing about it in grad school. I got pushed into studying data analytics and had to do a course on it. In the end I wrote my paper on the usefulness of it and basically said “it’s not without its uses, but there doesn’t seem to be a pressing need for it.” I read later a much better assessment of “a solution looking for a problem” and that basically nailed it.

jigga19 , YuriArcursPeopleimages Report

Final score:

142points

Two_rolling_black_eyes 10 months ago

Blockchain is an excellent choice for many things but its main commercial use (cryptocurrency) isn't one of them. Its wasting resources to create an artificial scarcity that has no real value. The strength or weakness of a currency is user belief. Almost the entire world looked at it and decided my one dollar or one yen bill works just fine and it won't go away if I forget a password.

30points

Trey Frog 10 months ago

They still work without needing electricity too.

7points

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Niels Boehm 10 months ago

Fiat currencies have artificial scarcity, too, just achieved by different means. You're right about currencies needing wide acceptance to be used for daily business, though.

2points

Ken Beattie 10 months ago

You're conflating mining crypto with actual blockchain there. The biggest energy expenditure is in the mining. You can own your crypto on a USB stick or a removable hard disk that is unpowered.

-2points

Dainty72 10 months ago

I've never heard of this. I'm not sure what this is?

11points

CertifiedCatServant (he/him) 10 months ago

The technology behind Bitcoin/cryptocurrency

27points

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Shawn Bean 10 months ago

The basis of crypto-currency such as Bitcoin

3points

Meester Chad 10 months ago

It's an open source digital verification system that is immensely useful and supports a wide array of applications. In a wee wee tiny nutshell.

3points

Pyla 10 months ago

Mlm for bros 2.0

11points

Sonja 10 months ago

That's not Blockchain, that's crypto currency. Crypto is based on Blockchain, but it's not the same. Block chain could be used for other stuff, but they are right. It's not neccessary, it has no inherent use. But Crypto currency wasn't just MLM, it was an open Pyramid scheme and people still don't want to see it.

8points

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Mat Hall 10 months ago

It has a few potentially useful applications, the ability to sell/trade/lend digital purchases (think Steam games etc., or ebooks in libraries) being one, but it seems to be doomed to NFT/cryptocurrency nonsense for now.

4points

Lame Llama 10 months ago

It's being used heavily in other tech as well.

-1point

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David 10 months ago

actually Blockchain is the backbone of decentralized data and is used by most fortune 500 companies, the US govt, etc. And while most people know it from Crypto, crypto is what led the main development of this tech, brining it to market years early. Microsoft, Google, etc, are all developing the future of cloud computing and storage based on Blockchain. Not only did it not flop, but it is more used than ever

3points

Jack Burton 10 months ago

This is the prehistory of blockchain, awesome possibilities.

2points

tullotoe underfoot 10 months ago

Blockchain is actually changing a lot of things, but like most technology that people only half understand, it will fail at changing more things it is used to fix that the ones it does.

0points

Jo Davies 10 months ago

I don't think the OP has a real understanding of blockchain. On the last article I wrote, there are over 300 million people using it and estimates of about 45% of tech companies will incorp it in the next 3 years or so. Very easy to dismiss if you don't understand and are not willing to play the long game.

0points

Jeroen de Wijn 10 months ago

Yes, obviously a data analytics student would not understand blockchain. But you, some internet rando that got all he needed to know about blockchain from a youtube video knows exactly what the future will bring - all hail blockchain our technology saviour.

9points

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Ashley_Kirin 10 months ago

Not really. 300 million people is really not much. I'd say it's going to take a bit more than 3 years. Probably a decade or more at least. Block chain has been relegated to crypto for now and that's unfortunate. It could be used to secure collector items or high end purchases or the like. But right now it's literally just crappy crypto tech that doesn't do anything useful.

0points

Demosthenes 10 months ago

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

Shiva Ho 10 months ago

Knew it was a scam from the moment they came out with it!

-1point

Rostit. . 10 months ago

Itll be nice once it has a more widescale purpose.

-1point

Ashley_Kirin 10 months ago

It technically does but it's not in use. The crypto dudes have claimed it for their useless bs

-1point

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Wilson Henley 10 months ago (edited)

So sorry but you clearly do not understand the deeper meaning of the technology behind it. You see, in real life, you cannot copy/paste any object at will. You cannot right-click a chair and duplicate it. Every object is finite and unique. A blockchain internet (web 3.0) will be exactly like that. Every file will be utterly unique with absolutely no way to duplicate/clone it. If you really think about the implications of that, you will see how meaningful this technology is.

-2points

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#11

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead I’m still very distraught we never got the modular phone revolution I was promised back in the early 2010s. Now it’s wildly exciting to have a replaceable battery. My heart weeps

zombiesnare , Fairphone Report

Final score:

129points

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#12

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Google+

realhollywoodactor , Kristina Alexanderson/flickr Report

Final score:

126points

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#13

Drone delivery of packages

Final score:

126points

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#14

The DCEU. I mean, they started a franchise finally showing Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman together on the big screen, and yet they somehow managed to botch it so spectacularly, so early on.

Emperor_D4C Report

Final score:

118points

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#15

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Amazon’s shopping buttons. They pushed really hard for those and I never saw the point.

anon , Alexander Klink/wikimedia Report

Final score:

117points

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#16

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead The Metaverse.

SlapDatBassBro , sese_87/flickr Report

Final score:

115points

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#17

Meghan and Harry

randomname196 Report

Final score:

112points

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#18

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Curved TV's.

Envoyager , Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr Report

Final score:

110points

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#19

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Motion controls in video games. They have not disappeared completely but they are nowhere as popular as they were back in the late 2000s.

anon , William Hook/flickr Report

Final score:

109points

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#20

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Minidisc

Miserable_Toe9920 , Nixdorf/wikimedia Report

Final score:

98points

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#21

Kinect was a full body motion control thing for the Xbox 360. It was supposed to change the gaming industry. It had maybe a dozen games made for it, most of which barely worked. And it silently went away after about 2 or 3 years.

MembraneintheInzane Report

Final score:

93points

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#22

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead How is that tesla cybertruck, it was announced years ago but not available yet, or is it?

OldMork , Lcaa9 Report

Final score:

90points

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#23

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead New Coke, 20 or 30 years ago, I think. Belly flopped.

Pure_Kale_3172 , Jetijonez/wikimedia Report

Final score:

90points

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#24

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead The litany of film adaptations of young adult novels that happened in the wake of Hunger Games' success. Aside from Divergent, which eventually ran out of gas, and Maze Runner all of them flopped and didn't get sequels.

Coolman_Rosso , 20th Century Fox Report

Final score:

89points

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#25

Fyre festival

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Final score:

86points

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#26

The future when you were young😂

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Final score:

85points

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#27

Clear Pepsi. If I remember correctly they even used a Van Halen song for the commercials

Spicoli76 Report

Final score:

84points

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#28

Hopefully, A.I..

masuski1969 Report

Final score:

84points

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#29

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead How has NOBODY posted about the Firephone???

Whole teams of people were fired after that debacle.

JumpintheFiah , Sam Churchill/flickr Report

Final score:

83points

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#30

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Wii U was unfortunate. The Switch is just a very refined Wii U.

DonMagnifique , ze_bear/flickr Report

Final score:

75points

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#31

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead One of the funniest I remember was solar roads. Solar panels that you drive on. Without damaging them, somehow. With your operating room tires.

Bonhomme7h , unknown Report

Final score:

71points

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#32

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead HD DVD

Still remember half the movies being blue and the others red.

anon , Masaru Kamikura/flickr Report

Final score:

69points

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#33

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Dippin Dots has been the ice cream of the future for a while now. You'd think that future would have come to pass by now.

Informal_Stranger117 , Mike Mozart/flickr Report

Final score:

66points

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#34

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Emu meat!

For a while there in the late 80s & early 90s it was a thing that doctors & lawyers who wanted the ranch lifestyle would invest in. There was enough awareness of it that emus getting killed by the monster was even played for a gag in *8 Legged Freaks* & one of the *Tremors* movies.

Skipp_To_My_Lou , Mercedes/flickr Report

Final score:

64points

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#35

Disney's Atlantis. They had a whole park planned around it. Unfortunately they released it in a year saturated by insanely good movies.

Ralph_Nacho Report

Final score:

61points

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#36

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead Zune

ShoopufJockey , Ged Carroll/flickr Report

Final score:

59points

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#37

Gonna tentatively suggest this, Apple's Vision Pro headset thing.

A VR headset with a separate battery that you have to carry, creepy eye vision screen on the front, and all for only $3500+. How could it fail?

Also, now that I think of it. Apple's Ping social networking thing.

Thumper-Comet Report

Final score:

57points

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#38

Fusion power is always 10 years away

YouEnvironmental2079 Report

Final score:

43points

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#39

Threads

InspektorBonipalia Report

Final score:

39points

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#40

40 Products That Were Thought To Be Life-Changing, But Were Utter Flops Instead KONY 2012

anon , RARE.PIK/flickr Report

Final score:

25points

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Adelaide Ross

Howdy, I'm Adelaide! I'm originally from Texas, but after graduating from university with an acting degree, I relocated to sunny Los Angeles for a while. I then got a serious bite from the travel bug and found myself moving to Sweden and England before settling in Lithuania about two years ago. I'm passionate about animal welfare, sustainability and eating delicious food. But as you can see, I cover a wide range of topics including drama, internet trends and hilarious memes. I can easily be won over with a Seinfeld reference, vegan pastry or glass of fresh cold brew. And during my free time, I can usually be seen strolling through a park, playing tennis or baking something tasty.

Howdy, I'm Adelaide! I'm originally from Texas, but after graduating from university with an acting degree, I relocated to sunny Los Angeles for a while. I then got a serious bite from the travel bug and found myself moving to Sweden and England before settling in Lithuania about two years ago. I'm passionate about animal welfare, sustainability and eating delicious food. But as you can see, I cover a wide range of topics including drama, internet trends and hilarious memes. I can easily be won over with a Seinfeld reference, vegan pastry or glass of fresh cold brew. And during my free time, I can usually be seen strolling through a park, playing tennis or baking something tasty.

Ieva Pečiulytė

I'm a Visual Editor for Bored Panda. I’m also an analog collage artist. My love for images and experience in layering goes well with both creating collages by hand and working with digital images as an Editor. When I’m not using my kitchen area as an art studio I also do various experiments making my own cosmetics or brewing kombucha. When I’m not at home you would most definitely find me attending a concert or walking my dog.

I'm a Visual Editor for Bored Panda. I’m also an analog collage artist. My love for images and experience in layering goes well with both creating collages by hand and working with digital images as an Editor. When I’m not using my kitchen area as an art studio I also do various experiments making my own cosmetics or brewing kombucha. When I’m not at home you would most definitely find me attending a concert or walking my dog.

What do you think ?

Petra Schaap 10 months ago

i guess the fact that i dont know half of these things means its true :-D

24points

Jane Alexander 10 months ago

Me too! -but as a wise man once sang; ♫ "Too much monkey business for me to be involved in"♫

0points

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Br 10 months ago (edited)

At one time there was the laser disc. A bigger version of cd and super expensive

4points

TheBlueBitterfly 10 months ago

I remember my elementary school's gifted program was given a laser disk player. The school was so proud of that thing. We had one laser disk for it... a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Or maybe it was the Smithsonian? It's been a while. Late 80s.

4points

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Jo Davies 10 months ago

Extended adverts on Bored Panda.

4points

JayWantsACat 10 months ago

People are equating 'trends' with 'life-changing' by saying "these things are still around". This article isn't about whether a trend fell out of favor, it's whether something touted as 'life-changing' ended up being so. It's irrelevant if they're still around, what matters is that they didn't affect society in the way they were sold they would. Motion control was supposed to change gaming. It didn't. The fact that VR and some games still use it doesn't change the fact that it didn't change the gaming industry.

2points

Worst Cop in Britain 10 months ago

A college degree.

1point

1 10 months ago

In the 80s they claimed soccer would get bigger in the US than American football.

1point

Jessica Wood 10 months ago

Remember ruby chocolate? It was everywhere for a while then it kind of vanished overnight.

1point

Jef Corb 10 months ago

Money for nothing, chicks for free...

0points

Yargarble 10 months ago

How about believing science, rational thought, separation of church and state, feelings don't outweigh facts. We've lost all of these in the US.

0points

Josh Gilland 10 months ago

Humans. We have had great potential for years but individually most of us squander our evolutionary advantage, as for a whole idk if we'll ever be truly civil, humanity seems to be regressing instead of progressing

0points

R. H. 10 months ago

I want a smaller phone but then there wouldn't be room for header and footer ads.

0points

Mimi M 10 months ago

Shopping threads on BP. Downvoted into oblivion, but they still show up, like the undead.

0points

A. HAM 10 months ago

Capacitance Electronic Disc - Right before VCRs were a household staple, and before laser disks, was the CED. I haven’t met a person yet that remembers them, but our local video store rented the disks and the machines for awhile in the 80’s. I still have a copy of Star Wars on CED as a conversion piece.

0points

Jason Melvil 10 months ago

Real life earnings in Video Games. Remember when Diablo 3 came out and it was super hyped that it has an auction house where you can pay in real money to other players? And people might make money out of it? People were saying it will change the entire industry. Spoiler alert: It didn't and even that game cut it out eventually.

0points

Dr Jimmy 03 10 months ago

No one mentioned AM Stereo radio...or did I miss a reply?

0points

Rostit. . 10 months ago

why would they? am stereo radio exists and people who want to listen to it can. The problem with terrestrial radio in general is that its not profitable anymore.

2points

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Petra Schaap 10 months ago

i guess the fact that i dont know half of these things means its true :-D

24points

Jane Alexander 10 months ago

Me too! -but as a wise man once sang; ♫ "Too much monkey business for me to be involved in"♫

0points

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Br 10 months ago (edited)

At one time there was the laser disc. A bigger version of cd and super expensive

4points

TheBlueBitterfly 10 months ago

I remember my elementary school's gifted program was given a laser disk player. The school was so proud of that thing. We had one laser disk for it... a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Or maybe it was the Smithsonian? It's been a while. Late 80s.

4points

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Jo Davies 10 months ago

Extended adverts on Bored Panda.

4points

JayWantsACat 10 months ago

People are equating 'trends' with 'life-changing' by saying "these things are still around". This article isn't about whether a trend fell out of favor, it's whether something touted as 'life-changing' ended up being so. It's irrelevant if they're still around, what matters is that they didn't affect society in the way they were sold they would. Motion control was supposed to change gaming. It didn't. The fact that VR and some games still use it doesn't change the fact that it didn't change the gaming industry.

2points

Worst Cop in Britain 10 months ago

A college degree.

1point

1 10 months ago

In the 80s they claimed soccer would get bigger in the US than American football.

1point

Jessica Wood 10 months ago

Remember ruby chocolate? It was everywhere for a while then it kind of vanished overnight.

1point

Jef Corb 10 months ago

Money for nothing, chicks for free...

0points

Yargarble 10 months ago

How about believing science, rational thought, separation of church and state, feelings don't outweigh facts. We've lost all of these in the US.

0points

Josh Gilland 10 months ago

Humans. We have had great potential for years but individually most of us squander our evolutionary advantage, as for a whole idk if we'll ever be truly civil, humanity seems to be regressing instead of progressing

0points

R. H. 10 months ago

I want a smaller phone but then there wouldn't be room for header and footer ads.

0points

Mimi M 10 months ago

Shopping threads on BP. Downvoted into oblivion, but they still show up, like the undead.

0points

A. HAM 10 months ago

Capacitance Electronic Disc - Right before VCRs were a household staple, and before laser disks, was the CED. I haven’t met a person yet that remembers them, but our local video store rented the disks and the machines for awhile in the 80’s. I still have a copy of Star Wars on CED as a conversion piece.

0points

Jason Melvil 10 months ago

Real life earnings in Video Games. Remember when Diablo 3 came out and it was super hyped that it has an auction house where you can pay in real money to other players? And people might make money out of it? People were saying it will change the entire industry. Spoiler alert: It didn't and even that game cut it out eventually.

0points

Dr Jimmy 03 10 months ago

No one mentioned AM Stereo radio...or did I miss a reply?

0points

Rostit. . 10 months ago

why would they? am stereo radio exists and people who want to listen to it can. The problem with terrestrial radio in general is that its not profitable anymore.

2points

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