> many hobbyist pundits continued to insist this was actually a valuable product. No idea if they were paid or not, but I'm sort-of afraid they really weren't.

> many hobbyist pundits continued to insist this was actually a valuable product. No idea if they were paid or not, but I'm sort-of afraid they really weren't. This pattern persists in hobby circles today. Once an idea takes hold as being true and enough people buy into it, it becomes extremely difficult to convince them it was wrong all along. Nobody likes admitting they were fooled, so they become invested in propagation the myth. I’ve even encountered this in the business world. I joined a company, discovered they had been doing something with no value (actually negative net value when considering the cost) and explained that it was a myth. The first reaction was that they couldn’t just stop doing it, because that would be tantamount to admitting they were wrong all along. They wanted me to work backward to find a new justification to continue doing it. I left.