Anyone notice after a couple years of reading digg, reddit, hacker news, even CNN, that these breakthroughs we are continually excited about don't seem to go an

Anyone notice after a couple years of reading digg, reddit, hacker news, even CNN, that these breakthroughs we are continually excited about don't seem to go anywhere? I know things take time time, but I keep waiting for just one of these breakthroughs to make it to the real world, and I can't think of any so far where I read about it, and now it is here.