Some Predictions About the Future that Missed the Mark

Here are just a few of the many predictions about technology and the future that missed the mark.

• Railroads will never succeed - “As you may well know, Mr. President, 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' … The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed." - Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1865
• Telephones will Never Catch On - In 1876, the President of Western Union dismissed phones as a “toy” when Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell him the patent for $100,000.
• Cars are Just a Passing Fancy - In 1903, the president of Michigan Savings Bank warned Henry Ford’s lawyer to protect his money. “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad,” he advised.
• “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” - Lord Kelvin, circa 1895, British mathematician and physicist.
• Electricity is Just a Fad - Luckily for his bank account, J.P. Morgan didn’t listen to his father and invested heavily in Edison. 
• "The Cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama" - Charlie Chaplin, actor, director movie producer
• TVs Are Not Going to be a Big Thing - 20^th Century Fox kingpin Darryl Zanuck sniffed at the idea of idiot boxes keeping people out of movie theaters. “People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
• “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943.
• “There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home.” - Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) in 1977.
• “The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most,” IBM executives to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959.
• "The Internet is just another fad." - My boss, the CIO at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) back in 1999.
• "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the U.S." - T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961.
• People will only want to Shop in Stores - In 1966, Time published an essay saying they thought online shopping would be rejected by humankind: “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop—because women like to get out of the house, like to handle the merchandise...”
• iPhones will Never Catch On - “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” That’s what Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft said back in 2007. 
• “Let’s look at the facts. Nobody uses those things…” - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer when asked about Google Android and the future of smartphone Apps.

These prediction by reknowned individuals clearly show that your predictions about the future are probably as good as anyone else – no matter how famous they are.

* Check out these other articles on predictions about the future.