âThe cinema is little more than a fad. Itâs canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.â -â Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916
âThe horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad.â â The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Fordâs lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
âThe Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.â â Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
âThis âtelephoneâ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.â â A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).
âThe world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.â â IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.
âI must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.â â HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.
âX-rays will prove to be a hoax.â â Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.
âThe idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.â â Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.
âHow, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.â â Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fultonâs steamboat, 1800s.
âFooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.â â Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).
âHome Taping Is Killing Musicâ â A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.
âTelevision wonât last. Itâs a flash in the pan.â â Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.
â[Television] wonât be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.â â Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
âWhen the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.â - Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson
âDear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as ârailroadsâ ⦠As you may well know, Mr. President, ârailroadâ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by âenginesâ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.â â Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).
âRail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.â â Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.
âThe wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?â â Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latterâs call for investment in the radio in 1921.