People used to ridicule those who tried to make possible aircraft and spaceflight. Now we take them for granted.
Other bits of mockery from the past 100 years:
* One telephone line in an office is enough, who’d ever need a phone on every desk?
* Only managers need to use email. If everyone has email they’ll just spend their whole day writing to friends.
* Who’d ever need more than 1MB of storage on a computer?
* No one will ever break the sound barrier.
* A bridge across the Golden Gate is a pipe dream.
And etc.
Maybe this idea will never come to fruition. Maybe it will replace regional air travel and obviate the push for high speed rail. In any case, the mockery of an entrepreneur who’s paying out of his own pocket to develop a technology he’s giving away to anyone who wants it is misplaced.
Oh, and in before the near-mandatory post of ‘boondoggle’.
Or my favorite....”Guitar bands are on the way out.” - Decca music executive on why he declined to sign The Beatles.
They said that it could not be done,
He said, “Just let me try.”
They said, “Other men have tried and failed,”
He answered, “But not I.”
They said, “It is impossible,”
He said, “There’s no such word.”
He closed his mind, he closed his heart...
To everything he heard.
He said, “Within the heart of man,
There is a tiny seed.
It grows until it blossoms,
It’s called the ‘Will to Succeed’.
Its’ roots are strength, its’ stem is hope,
Its’ petals inspiration,
Its’ thorns protect its’ strong green leaves,
With grim determination.
Its’ stamens are its skills
Which help to shape each plan,
For there’s nothing in the universe
Beyond the scope of man.”
They thought that it could not be done,
Some even said they knew it,
But he faced up to what could not be done...
...AND HE COULDN’T BLOODY DO IT!
-Benny Hill
Well, if you extend that to Facebook and tweets it was certainly prescient.