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46 Examples Of Great Products That Failed When They Shouldn’t Have
The world is filled with loads of stuff. Some of it makes our lives easier, a few we can’t live without, others are purely just for fun. Then there are those that are utterly useless. Someone out there is always trying to make something better, or bigger/smaller, or faster. And new products are launched almost on a daily basis.
Deciding to introduce something to an already saturated market can be risky. You might lose money, damage your brand, and at worst, have to shut down your entire company if your product flops spectacularly. Of course, sometimes the risk is worth the reward. if you succeed, you could find yourself rolling in the dough.
When Google announced it was working on making wearable smart glasses, the world went wild. Well, some people did, anyway. Time Magazine named Glass one of the Best Inventions of 2012. Media mogul Tim O’Reilly tweeted: “I suspect that Google Glass may be a technology milestone to surpass the iPhone.” The product was officially launched in 2014. By 2015, it was dead and gone... Pulled from the market following epic failure to perform, among other things. When someone asked "What product failed despite being actually pretty good?", thousands of people added their two cents. Bored Panda has put together some of the top answers. Upvote your favorites and let us know in the comments what products you think should be on this list.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The A&W 1/3 pound burger. Too many people can't do fractions, so they thought it was smaller than a quarter pounder. It was the same price as the quarter pounder, so it was actually a better deal.
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#2
The Windows Tablet. No one cared about it when Bill Gates presented it. Years later when Apple presents essentially the same thing, everyone goes nuts.
#4
Palm Pilots. They did really well in the late 90's/early 00's. The very second BlackBerry and smartphones came out they couldn't compete and went under.
#5
Vienetta. I couldn’t wait to grow up so i could buy my own Vienetta and pig out, i didn’t know id grow up in a world that did not have Vienetta readily available.
#7
Netscape Navigator was a great internet browser but unfortunately couldn't compete with IE being bundled on every PC and congress didn't break Microsoft's browser monopoly until after Navigator went away.
#10
Betamax was superior to VHS in most ways but still failed (mostly). I obviously chose the wrong 'side' in the fight but most people still believe it was a better product and survived for a bit until the industry picked one.
#12
~~Fabreeze~~ Febreze. The only reason they added scents is because people didnt know that the "original" scent (neutral) was doing anything. Everyone thought it wasn't doing anything at all.
#14
I loved Teavana shops, an amazing variety of quality teas in a brick and motor shop, plus cups of tea made to go.
#17
I don't know if it really was good or I was just young, but back around 2000 I had this, I think it was Panasonic, tiny little flip thing. It was one of the first things that was a video camera, still camera, and MP3 player. I've been searching to figure out what it was called for about 10 minutes now, it was amazing, about 3"x3" and had video and still and SD port to put pictures or music on it. I was the coolest kid ever with that thing.
#18
There was a pancake batter in a whipped cream can I used to buy. It was great, you didn’t need to make a ton of batter just to have some pancakes (good for single people and college students), and it used good quality ingredients (and tasty!).
The reason it failed, I think, was because it was sold exclusively though Whole Foods (IIRC), which isn’t the best market for pancake batter in a whipped cream can.
That, and it was called “Batter Blaster”.
#19
The Wii U, several of the best games in their respective genres of all time, though most have been ported to the Switch
#20
Polaroid cameras. You don't have to go to Walgreens to get them developed and with the newer ones tend to have as high a resolution as a regular digital camera.
#22
Bounce Dryer Bars you would stick on the inside of your dryer and last for over a month replacing individual sheets.
#25
McDonald's pizza. Was a huge success but got crushed by order times. Each pizza had to be made to order unlike everything else on the menu.
Maybe my tastebuds are nostalgic but I remember it being the best pizza I ever had as a kid.
#26
Angelfire. The best place for sparkly gifs and Buffy the vampire slayer fan-fic before there was Tumblr.
#27
Well I don’t if this counts as a “product”, but Princess and the Frog by Disney was considered a failure because it didn’t make as much money as they had hoped it would. Which was the final push to make them stop making 2D movies
#28
I think the Palm Pre was under appreciated and had great features that were ahead of the competition.
Like being able to scroll back and forth through open apps, swipe up to close, wireless charging, and a lot more. WebOS was just great.
It was my first smart phone so maybe I’m just biased. To me it seemed so much more intuitive and versatile than early iOS or Android.
#30
Anything Microsoft does outside of Windows, Office, Xbox and Azure cloud really. They can't shake the stigma of being an "Office" company that Apple-branded them as long ago they can't seem to get into other markets like phones and gadgets.
#32
Jell-O Pudding Bites. Those things were like crack to me as a kid. They came with two flavors my favorite was chocolate and vanilla. One day they just disappeared and I never got to say goodbye.
#33
I'm gonna say the PS Vita.
There were multiple factors for it failing, but the device itself being of bad quality wasn't one of them (from my understanding).
#36
Google Reader!
It was such a great RSS reader and a great way to keep up with blogs. After it was pulled, I couldn’t find a replacement and I have since practically stopped reading blogs thanks to that. :(
#38
Pebble smartwatches, they recently stopped being supported by Fitbit. I don't think I will be getting anouther smartwatches for a very long time.
#40
Vault soft drink from Coca Cola. Then they pulled it and pushed Mello Yello in its place. I still miss it.
#41
A bunch of Wendy's old menu items, specifically their Spicy Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Strips, and Frosty Milkshakes. I remember I lost 2 teeth on the same chicken strip when I was a kid, it was that good!
#42
MoviePass such a great idea, I wanted it to work so badly but its model is just unsustainable
#43
TITAN FALL 2 BAYBY. Like seriously it’s depressing how good the movement system, mechanics, gun play, and symbiosis you have with your titan and yet it has a very small player base. It’s campaign was astoundingly short yet sweet. It was probably the best fps game of 2016. If you have the Chance check it out. It’s is always on sale. See you on the frontier pilots.
#45
YikYak. It was fun in a dumb way and you could talk s**t and complain anonymously and then they tried to turn it into social media and they k****d it.
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