(Over)hyped technologies that delivered

Question

With technology, there is always hype - and that's great, we all want it to be exciting. And then, for any hyped technology (AI, self-driving cars, energy production, etc) there quickly form two camps, arguing whether the technology will deliver on the hype.So I'm trying to gather some data! How many hyped technologies since, say, 1940s, actually delivered on the hype, mostly at least? The examples I can think of mostly didn't, but I must be missing some.Some things that IMO didn't deliver (so far at least) include:- nuclear fusion- quantum computing- nuclear power, as the too-cheap-to-meter power source- self-driving cars (so far - we have great technology but nothing resembling an autonomous car for the masses)- space travel for the masses (as predicted in 60s and 70s)- social media, which seem already in declineOn the flipside the Internet delivered far, far more than anyone could imagine in it's early days. So I wonder how good are hypes as predictors of future performance.

a2code · Accepted Answer

The Internet is one example of a hype that delivered, despite the dot-com bubble.

lfciv · Answer

Given your timeline (since the 1940s) I'd say cell phones in general come to mind as meeting the hypeI also think Cloud Computing has generally met the hype

0xEF · Answer

"Hype," to me, has always and only had a negative connotation that roughly described it as an empty promise, and nothing more. Be it words on a page or some frontman on uppers jumping around in front of an audience, hype is always absent of any concrete proof that what is claimed is also true.
The Mechanical Turk (not the Amazon one) turned out to be a guy in a box. Yet, the mythos that presumably surrounded it was only possible because it was also designed to fool casual examiners. So, even if we argue that the tech demonstration at Conference X shows the product living up to the hype, there is a solid chance it is still an illusion designed to get us to buy in. So, from where I stand, hype is an empty promise intended to deceive.
In the spirit of the original question, I find myself much more curious about how other people define hype.

scrapheap · Answer

The microprocessor certainly delivered on the hype it got in the late 70's and early 80's.

austin-cheney · Answer

Upcoming things full of hype that look promising are the game Skywind and UltraRAM.
Things worth the hype:
Hubble, JWST, power steering, airbags, antilock brakes. Actually the only things I can think of are material sciences, safety mechanics, construction techniques, and scientific observations. These are all things hyped in a professional venue that are boring in general contexts. I can’t think of anything in the mainstream that was worth the hype.

fragmede · Answer

Self driving cars are here, we just have to wait for it to scale up to the rest of the planet. I don't know where that puts it on the understatement-hype scale, but it works.

codegeek · Answer

I m not old enough but seen old newspaper articles that internet was supposed to be a fad as late as early-mid nineties.

mkaszkowiak · Answer

Smartphones immediately come to mind.

VoodooJuJu · Answer

LLM's are nice. Overhyped, but definitely nice.

thinkharderdev · Answer

Off the top of my head* The Haber-Bosch process (for creating synthetic fertilizers)* Fracking (strictly in terms of the promise to unlock previously un-usable petroleum reserves, whether or not that's a good thing depends on how climate change affects humanity in the longer run)* Solar cells* Penicillin (and antibiotics more generally)* Vaccines in general* mRNA vaccines in particular (maybe too early to tell, we'll see if the COVID vaccines were a one-hit wonder)* Semaglutide (again, maybe too early to tell)

Ezra · Answer

Vaccines!