2007 doesn’t seem like that long ago, but it’s been ten years. That passage of time has revealed some things we thought we knew to be completely wrong. Here are just a few things we’re embarrassed to say we believed a decade ago.
Ringtones would save the music industry.
Remember when it was common to spend $3 so you could get a ringtone version of your favorite song? Thanks to music piracy, that seemed like the lifeline the music industry needed to stay afloat. That seems laughable today.
The iPhone came out and suddenly our phones were our MP3 players. iTunes also allowed us to download our favorite song for less than a dollar, and ringtones just sort of became lame. We’d rather not say how much we spent on ringtones back in the day.
The iPhone was just for kids, it would never be used for business.
There was a time when iPhones seemed like a toy for college kids. The serious-minded business people among us all swore by their Blackberries. In fact, some people actually predicted that the iPhone would fail.
This seems crazy, but it was because the phone did so much that people thought it would never catch on with consumers or with people to use for business. Considering some people run their entire business through their iPhone, that prediction couldn’t have been more wrong.
MySpace would remain a vital social media site.
It’s hard to believe, but MySpace was once the gold standard of social media. Anyone who had a profile back then knows exactly what a Top 8 was and how important it was to be in your crush’s. Even with the advent of Facebook, many people thought MySpace was here to stay. In fact, until March 2008, MySpace was the most popular social media page on the internet.
Unfortunately, Facebook blew past it in April 2008 and never looked back. Today, MySpace is just a footnote in history as Facebook seeks to become the most profitable company in the world.
The Wii was the future of gaming.
The Wii was revolutionary when it came out. It was used by casual gamers to play games with their friends, used by older folks to stay in shape, and was heralded as a completely new way of gaming that would change consoles forever.
While the Wii was incredibly popular for several years, it gradually fell out of favor as the novelty of the system wore off. While some people pine for the days when we could bowl or play tennis in our living room, most people have forgotten about the Wii entirely.
Radiohead was about to destroy the music industry.
Radiohead released their album “In Rainbows” back in 2007, and they used a unique pricing model to combat piracy. The band allowed users to download the album and pay whatever price they wanted. If that meant they downloaded the album for free, that’s what it meant.
People were worried that this model would make it impossible for young bands to make money off their music. After all, if they couldn’t sell their albums, how could they afford to keep making music? Now, with YouTube and Spotify, young artists and bands have more avenues than ever to get their music out there and be heard. A decade later, the music industry remains strong.
