The Hype. The Reality.

Four technologies that were going to change everything. They did — just not how anyone predicted. The pattern is worth remembering the next time someone tells you exactly how AI is going to play out.

Sources: IoT — Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg, 2010 (50 billion prediction); IHS Markit / Statista (actual 2020 device count); Statista (2025 figure ~21 billion).

3D Printing — President Obama, State of the Union address, February 2013; MarketsandMarkets global 3D printing market report 2025 ($16B); Boeing / NASA additive manufacturing programmes (publicly reported).

Self-Driving — Elon Musk, Tesla Autonomy Day, April 2019 (“next year for sure”); Tesla support page (FSD Supervised, active driver supervision required, June 2026); Electrek / TESMAG (HW3 unsupervised FSD confirmed impossible, April 2026); Waymo fleet and city data (carboncredits.com / thedriverlessdigest.com, Nov 2025–Apr 2026); Apple AV programme cancellation (Bloomberg, 2024); GM Cruise, Ford, VW programme cancellations (widely reported, 2023–2024).

VR / Metaverse — Greenlight VR / Road to VR 2016 industry forecast (135M headsets); Meta Reality Labs cumulative operating losses $83.6B (Meta Q4 2024 earnings); IDC AR/VR tracker (shipments 2024); PwC “Seeing is Believing” report (Fortune 500 XR adoption, 52% training cost reduction at scale).

Article 8 of the "Every Era Has Its Reboot" series — exploring what every major technology shift actually meant for ordinary businesses, and what AI means for yours. | redebuter.com