Ah, the 90’s. As with any decade in the past, the 1990’s can be an extremely nostalgic time for many to reminisce on. From the classic sitcoms of Friends and Seinfeld to the catchy bops of the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys, the 90’s gave us so many gifts. But aside from being an excellent era for pop culture, not everything from this decade could withstand the test of time. Along with the piles of ginormous JNCO jeans sent off to local thrift stores as they faded out of style, some predictions made in the 90’s can be funny to look back on as well.
Inspired by a newspaper article from 2000 titled “Internet May Be Just A Passing Fad As Millions Give Up On It” going viral on Twitter, we began digging up other hilariously inaccurate predictions from the past. Although these claims about the future did not ring true, they certainly are amusing to read today. Below you’ll also find an exclusive interview featuring Dan Gardner, author of “Future Babble : Why Expert Predictions Fail – and Why We Believe Them Anyway” and “Superforecasting – The Art and Science of Prediction“.
Enjoy this comical list we’ve compiled at Bored Panda, and keep in mind what Forrest Gump so wisely told us in 1994, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
#1
“Two years from now, spam will be solved” – Bill Gates, 2004
Image credits: Torsten Dettlaff
#2
“I don’t believe that phone books, newspapers, magazines, or corner video stores will disappear as computer networks spread. Nor do I think that my telephone will merge with my computer, to become some sort of information appliance.” “Video-on-demand, that killer application of communications, will remain a dream.” – Clifford Stoll
Image credits: Clifford Stoll
#3
In 1998, FourFourTwo magazine predicted David Beckham would look like this (left) in 2020. This is how he actually looks like
Image credits: borjaramos
#4
Image credits: BadfishRanch
#5
“You’ll never make any money out of children’s books” – Advice to JK Rowling from Barry Cunningham, editor at Bloomsbury Books, 1996.
Image credits: fastcompany
#6
“The whole way that you can check somebody’s reputation will be so much more sophisticated on the Net than it is in print today” – Bill Gates
Image credits: 20thcenturymarc
#7
“I suspect Big Brother won’t have an easy time tracing us. … Our privacy will be protected, as it always has been, by simple obscurity and the high cost of uncovering information about us.” – Clifford Stoll, 1995
Image credits: Clifford Stoll
#8
Image credits: webbedfeet
#9
“No matter how inexpensive the machines become, I still can’t imagine the average user taking one along when fishing.” – Erik Sandberg-Diment
Image credits: Erik Sandberg-Diment
#10
“The idea of a personal communicator in every pocket is a ‘pipe dream driven by greed’.” – Andy Grove, then CEO if Intel (1992)
Image credits: Crypt0n0ob
#11
In 1993, internet expert John Allen told CBC that he believed that our own moral code and internal rules would stop people from doing horrible things online.
“There’s not a lot of cursing, or swearing. One would think if you’re anonymous you could do anything you want, but people in a group have their own sense of community and what we can do.”
Image credits: CBC
#12
Clifford Stoll being sceptical about online shopping, which is basically how everyone buys stuff now: “We’re promised instant catalogue shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts.
Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn’t—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”
Image credits: newsweek
#13
“…Apple [is] a chaotic mess without a strategic vision and certainly no future.” (1996)
Image credits: TIME magazine
#14
This book from 1999 thought this was gonna be space in 2010. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.
Image credits: CauliflowerFlaky6127
#15
“HANGING OUT IN THE YEAR 2020” Trapper Keeper from 1993
Image credits: joshuatx
#16
Image credits: EKrediet
#17
Virtual reality, 90’s perspective
Image credits: ilikelegoandcrackers
#18
“Admit it, you’re out of the hardware game.” – Wired Magazine challenges Apple to face up to the ‘fact’ that it can’t compete with other gadget makers, 1996
Image credits: afflictor
#19
“When high-bandwidth links allow every home to access animated, talking, holographic computerized encyclopedias, I can’t help thinking that kids still won’t use ’em.” – Clifford Stoll
Image credits: Clifford Stoll
#20
In the September 4, 1998, edition of the Amarillo Daily News in Texas, writer Amy Tao made a few predictions about what life may look like in 20 years—most importantly stating that human cloning will be commonplace. “Cloning will be a big thing. Despite moral activist protests, clones of animals and human beings walk the earth. Don’t feel like going to school? Send your clone! What if your dog dies suddenly? Just take out the clone of him!” she writes.
Image credits: Amy Tao
#21
Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted in 1999 that human life expectancy would rise to “over one hundred” by 2019
Image credits: Michael Lutch
#22
“By the turn of the century, we will live in a paperless society.” —Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, 1986
Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk
#23
Image credits: ivarsorensen
#24
Image credits: Bob Metcalfe
#25
Jeff Bezos in the late 90s, describing Apple Computer as an “true American tragedy”, among other choice quotes of what caused Apple to bite the dust
Image credits: Torley_
#26
Ines Uusuman, the Swedish minister of communication said in 1996“Internet is just a temporary fly”
Image credits: otto_rasmusson
#27
In 1988, the Los Angeles Times magazine published a special issue predicting what life would be like in 25 years’ time. In some ways, they missed the mark completely:
Cities mandate that business stagger shifts, to ease the burden on commuting and city services.
Barcodes on our money to avoid corruption and crime and keep track of every dollar bill and who it belongs to.
Multiple families cram into single-home structures, because there’s no housing. The opposite of the housing bubble that floods markets with too many empty homes.
Image credits: theatlantic
#28
“Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet, which only just recently got this section here in InfoWorld, will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” – Robert Metcalfe
Image credits: Robert Metcalfe
#29
Image credits: Ritawilson321
#30
2000: ‘Children won’t know what snow is.’
Image credits: The Independent
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