>To counter I agree with you, but this isn't really a counter-argument; it bolsters my point. The examples the OP gives of things that were coinsidered "not w

>To counter I agree with you, but this isn't really a counter-argument; it bolsters my point. The examples the OP gives of things that were coinsidered "not worth the time" were, in fact, so desired that the time between "first" and "first commercial" was sometimes spread over tens or even hundreds of years. These were not things that skeptics wanted thrown in the dustbin, but instead a Great Man worked on to bring them to fruition. They were fine tuned over long periods by many people. We have this weird thing where you can find a quote by some monk, or Steve Ballmer and the iPhone and we think, "No one believed!" But there is plenty of evidence (judging by time from "first" to "first commercial" ) that people saw value from day one. The iPhone was a big step, but itself was still just an iteration. That's how progress works.