Indeed. All breakthrough techs initially suck. They're a shitty, borderline-useless, but FUNCTIONAL breakthrough. And that's really the thing - they might be

Indeed. All breakthrough techs initially suck. They're a shitty, borderline-useless, but FUNCTIONAL breakthrough. And that's really the thing - they might be a joke, but if they do work, and if they're just barely usable for some niche product (specifically in some new space that other solutions were not really viable for), then the giant deathball of applied corporate R&D starts rolling on them. SSDs are probably the absolute bellweather of this, since their early forms held mere kilobytes. They were uniquely useful because they were non-volatile, and immune(-ish) to the kinds of shaking disruptions that befoul magnetic media (usually via head crashes). The thing about these things is the corporate R&D deathball. Once it gets rolling, they can breed a mouse to be the size of an elephant. The more profound/insight-driven challenge lies in getting that initial mouse, and getting that initial foothold of a market opportunity. -- Batteries of course were another great example. The reason we have viable electric cars, instead of trashy ones with a 20-mile range, is entirely thanks to the consumer electronics industry (broadly including power tools, etc). They needed batteries and paid for the R&D. Fast forward 25 years, and "the best we can do" jumped from a 20-mile range, to a 250-mile range.