COVER STORY: Predictions Are Stupid, Pointless And Often Wrong. Here’s Eight Shockers To End The Year

Never pitch a prediction story to Which-50. Ever. Sadly this lesson is forgotten every year, and we are assailed by companies who feel compelled to issue vague buzzword-laden prophesies so bland they would make a Delphic oracle blush with embarrassment.

It’s never easy to pick through the entrails of the goat — especially in a space that changes as quickly as the internet — but that hasn’t stopped people trying. Like in 2004 when Bill Gates declared spam would be eradicated by 2006.

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Instead of bringing you more of these benign and basically beige divinations that no one ever tests afterwards, Which-50 has instead taken a trip down the time tunnel to revisit some of the more stunningly inaccurate examples of the craft. (But Google Glass is so coming back.)

1. Prediction: IPhone Has “No Chance” At Gaining Market Share

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s iPhone skepticism lives in internet infamy. In 2007, following the unveiling of the world’s first iPhone, Ballmer delivered scathing in his skepticism of Apple’s venture into mobile. “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,” Ballmer told USA today.

Ballmer believed the iPhone’s price tag meant the Cupertino company would never become a mobile computing powerhouse. He doubled down on the comments in a CNBC interview.

“Right now we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling zero phones a year. In six months they’ll have the most expensive phone, by far, ever in the marketplace. Let’s see. Let’s see how the competition goes,” Ballmer said.

The competition went pretty well. Rising steadily over five years, Apple captured 23 per cent of new smartphone sales worldwide in 2012. Apple’s mobile presence would help drive it to become the most valuable publicly traded company of all time (well, the jury is out on that last point as anyone who has studied the history of the East India Company can attest).

Things went from bad to worse for Microsoft when Google unleashed Android on the world. Smart mobility replaced the desktop as the primary point of technology consumption and in a few short years, Microsoft’s operating system monopoly – the bedrock of its economic power – disintegrated. It was a textbook digital disruption story; Microsoft was undone not by the emergence of a new competitive operating system but by the arrival of a whole new way of operating.

Meanwhile, Windows mobile saw it’s market share crumble to just 0.1 per cent in 2017 and Windows phones to be pronounced dead.

Ballmer can console himself that at least he wasn’t the only one left looking spectacularly foolish. Jim Balsillie the co-CEO of Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion CEO said of the same announcement, “It’s OK—we’ll be fine.” 

2. Prediction: The PC Is Dead

The launch of Apple’s iPad almost immediately ushered in predictions of the death of the PC.

For instance, on November 30, 2011 the MIT Technology Review headlined a story by Jonathan Zittrain with “The Personal Computer is dead.” Not a lot of wriggle room there. In his defence, he was hardly alone. Forbes, FoxNewsand Capgemini all danced on the same warm corpse that year.

That said, their prediction seemed not entirely without merit in the intervening years. In fact 2018 will be the first time since 2011 that PC sales increase – assuming Gartner’s prediction from October this year is borne out.

3. Prediction: Travis Kalanick Will Take Uber Public “As Late As Humanly Possible”

What a difference a year makes. Speaking at an event in Berlin in June 2016, then-CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick said he was in no hurry to introduce Uber to the public markets.

“I say we are going to IPO as late as humanly possible. It will be one day before my employees and significant others come to my office with pitchforks and torches. We will IPO the day before that. Do you get it?” Kalanick said.

Kalanick ran out of time this year when he ousted from the company in June. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO since late August, has put a tighter time frame around a potential IPO, saying he’d like Uber to go public by 2019. But who knows, maybe Kalanick will stage a return to the Uber top job and delay an IPO? We’ve heard stranger predictions.

4. Prediction: Google Glass Is A Game Changer

Google Glass launched in April 2012 and within a year Glassholes everywhere where singing its praises and predicting its impact would be huge. By January 2015 Google has shut down the program behind its $1500 eyewear.

But could it have been a great idea at the wrong time? Or just aimed at the wrong market? Google Glass could be ready for a second act, reborn for augmented reality applications in the workplace.

5. Prediction: “Grocery Will Be Amazon’s Waterloo” – Whole Foods CEO

In 2015 Whole Foods CEO John Mackey declared Amazon’s grocery delivery service Amazon Fresh would be its ‘Waterloo’. Mackey assumed selling perishable goods online would prove too challenging for the ecommerce giant, ultimately costing Bezos more than he bargained for. “What’s the one thing people want? Convenience. You can’t do that with distribution centers and trucks,” Mackey reportedly said.

Turns out Jeff Bezos found another one to build his grocery empire, stumping up almost $14 billion to buy Whole Foods mid-way through 2017. Since then Amazon has scaled back its grocery delivery service Amazon Fresh in parts of the US, tweaking its strategy to more closely integrate the two businesses.

A new prediction to keep an eye on: Forrester reckons “2018 will be the year online grocery finally takes off” in the $US800 billion US grocery sector, which has so far proven stubbornly more resistant to digital channels than other areas of retail.

6. Prediction: Myspace Will Generate $1 Billion In Revenue And Make Rupert Murdoch “Very Happy”

Murdoch made the above prediction when Myspace was booming and reportedly worth $12 billion. He later walked the prediction back from $1 billion to $750 million and by 2011 he was struggling to find buyers in a Myspace firesale.

News Corp acquired Myspace for $580 million in 2005 and for a while it looked like a steal. By August 2006, the 100 millionth Myspace user had signed up and they were well and truly leading the social media market. Business was booming, prompting Murdoch to begin making some rosy predictions.

“[Revenue] is at least 30 times what it was the day we bought it two years ago. If we keep that trajectory going like that we’ll be very happy,” he said.

But the ensuing years saw mismanagement and stagnation while a young Mark Zuckerberg focused on innovation and user experience.

By 2011 Myspace was in free fall, losing 10 million users in one month. The plummeting traffic added to advertiser’s anxiety over the company’s uncertain future.

By the time Murdoch could find a buyer midway through 2011 the price tag was just US$35 million and he now refers to the Myspace foray as a “huge mistake”. Like pretty much everything else he has done online except realestate.com.au.

7. Prediction: 3D Is The Future Of TV

3D TV is officially dead. Manufacturers ceased production of the technology for televisions earlier this year. And while 3D TV has been mostly dormant for several years now, for a while it was being heralded as the future of TV.

James Cameron’s Avatar was the catalyst for much of the 3D hype, creating the buzz that our viewing experience would never be the same again. All of the major TV brands jumped on board and began manufacturing 3D TVs. Why go to the cinema when you can sit at home with some cool glasses!

Problem was, consumers didn’t really like it.

“3D capability was never really universally embraced in the industry for home use, and it’s just not a key buying factor when selecting a new TV,” LG director of new product development, Tim Alessi, told CNET.

Since peaking in 2012, 3D home video equipment purchases have declined every year. 3D broadcasters have pulled the plug too, leaving very little content. There are currently no 3D channels in Australia. And no one ever really solved the glasses issue.

3D TV actually had three iterations, beginning all the way back in 1928. All three have failed but a fourth may be right around the corner.

For those precious few who actually miss it, there is an online petition for manufacturers to bring 3D TV back.

8. Prediction: Competition For AI Superiority Will Cause WW3 – Elon Musk Tweets

Artificial intelligence raced up the hype cycle in 2017, bringing with it plenty of doomsday predictions. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been particularly vocal about the dangers of AI, tweeting “If you’re not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea.”

While there is certainly some grandstanding to Musk’s proclamations he is at least consistent, having previously called the technology a fundamental existential threat to human civilisation and urging regulators to step in.

In September Musk tweeted, “China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at a national level most likely cause of WW3 imo.”

He was responding to comments made by Vladimir Putin that the nation that leads in AI ‘will be the ruler of the world’.

Just in case Musk turns out to be correct, we’d like to say thanks for reading.

Can you add to our list? If you can think of any other predictions that belong on the Which-50 Wall of Shame email Joseph Brookes at [email protected].

This article was compiled by Tess Bennett, Joseph Brookes and Andrew Birmingham. Connect with them on LinkedIn or follow Which-50 on Twitter.