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!
#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.
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93points
#22
How is that tesla cybertruck, it was announced years ago but not available yet, or is it?
90points
#23
New Coke, 20 or 30 years ago, I think. Belly flopped.
90points
#24
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.
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89points
#27
Clear Pepsi. If I remember correctly they even used a Van Halen song for the commercials
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84points
#29
How has NOBODY posted about the Firephone???
Whole teams of people were fired after that debacle.
83points
#30
Wii U was unfortunate. The Switch is just a very refined Wii U.
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75points
#31
One of the funniest I remember was solar roads. Solar panels that you drive on. Without damaging them, somehow. With your operating room tires.
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71points
#32
HD DVD
Still remember half the movies being blue and the others red.
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69points
#33
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.
66points
#34
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.
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64points
#35
Disney's Atlantis. They had a whole park planned around it. Unfortunately they released it in a year saturated by insanely good movies.
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61points
#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.
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57points
