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There is a universal truth that if you can be quoted you will be, and chances are pretty good that if that quote is even marginally related to technology you will be completely wrong. I’ve compiled a list of tech blunders from across the last few hundred years.

Quotes

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

“But what … is it good for?”
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?”
David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
Bill Gates, 1981

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“Man will not fly for 50 years. “
Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903).

“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds. “
TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.

“There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States. “
T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).

“Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years. “ Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. “
A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).

“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe,would die of asphyxia.”
Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

“X-rays will prove to be a hoax. “
Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most. “
IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.”

“Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.”
Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962.

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The upshot? Most great inventions are despised by their contemporaries. Chances are good that if you predict a technology will be too expensive to be practical you are only about our years away from a much cheaper version of that technology. Never believe the opinion of the guy with a competing product. Professors, scientists and intellectuals say some silly things sometimes and they are oft quoted for them.

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