I'm not sure about the novel and chair examples, but the issue of evidence of every early stage failures in general is interesting. The other proto-pedias and

I'm not sure about the novel and chair examples, but the issue of evidence of every early stage failures in general is interesting. The other proto-pedias and Minecraft-could-have-beens never happened at all - for some people, they stayed on the drawing board and never made it to the web - so there's no evidence of them to point to at all. They left no trace.