What was something that generated as much as hype as “Web 3” but failed?

5th generation computing[1]. This was an initiative by the Japanese computer industry to create a new class of highly parallel computers specialized for AI, in the early 80s, and primarily programmed in Prolog-like languages. There were people who genuinely believed that the success of this project would leapfrog Japan over the Western computing industry, in other words FOMO.

Perhaps ironically, there are some aspects of this project (parallelism and AI) that are now massively important. It's just that they were ahead of their time on those aspects, and Prolog is now largely a historical bywater.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Generation_Computer_Syst...

VRML - Virtual Reality Modeling Language. I remember a lot of talk. It was going to be big on the 1990s web but then nothing really happened. Quoting Wikipedia:

"VRML has never seen much serious widespread use.[18] One reason for this may have been the lack of available bandwidth.[19] At the time of VRML's popularity, a majority of users, both business and personal, were using slow dial-up Internet access."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML

VR and now meta - Conceptually it's nice, but not there yet - the tech is expensive, limited usefulness of apps - games do better, but still limited - and then there is the user interface with the human mind (disorienting/vertigo/motion sickness/etc) ---- for me, it's best just to turn the lights out and work with a monitor.

Cold Fusion, 3d printing, AI, personal computers. Most failed to breakthrough into a mass market product until a generation later. The microwave was invent in 1950 but became a mass product a generation later for example.

The web3 is a generation too early.

Michael Arrington argues Silverlight is the future of the web

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18531

Segway, Google+, Google Glass, Theranos

Google glass and wearables.

Initial Coin Offerings.

Maybe Visual Basic?

Push technology

Clubhouse.