It's usually not about the binary guess of success or failure, though. Or at least that's not the interesting thing to look for. Initial criticism often helps

It's usually not about the binary guess of success or failure, though. Or at least that's not the interesting thing to look for. Initial criticism often helps see the future silhouette of a happening even in its success. You can see that American racial tension won't immediately end with emancipation or even with reconstruction, that Europe will remain tense and unstable after the Treaty of Versailles, that Bitcoin will struggle against genuine societal concerns around accountability or dispute resolution, etc and people almost always call these things out at the time. Keeping an eye on those original critiques, even when something proves generally desirable or successful or inevitable, helps make the challenges of today and tomorrow something to one might prepare for rather than be surprised by.