[Mz]

Most people are terrible at predicting the future in this way. Some of the most accurate predictions sound like (or are) jokes at the time, like when JK Rowling was writing her first book as basically a "welfare mom." She did a lot of the writing while her baby napped at some eatery owned by friends/relatives. She would make jokes to the effect of "When my book gets famous, it will put your place on the map!" That basically all came true, from the book being famous to it making the place she wrote it famous too.

But when you go back historically, predictions of what life would be like "now" all left out the world changing invention of computers and internet.

There is a scene in the movie "The Graduate" where he is at a party and everyone is telling him what he should go into as his career because it will be big in the future. One person tells him "Plastics!" This was a joke at the time, a ridiculous statement. Years later, the plastics industry used that bit in a TV commercial.

If you really, sincerely believe "The Future is all about X industry," you aren't telling people that on the internet. You are quietly behind the scenes buying more shares in X or getting training to work in X or otherwise trying to make sure you are the firstest with the mostest in X.

[BatFastard]

5 years out is not that hard, since it is basically which technologies that are either just out, or coming out soon will be successful. 10 years is more challenging, 20 impossible.

[Mz]

Five years ago, tablets were basically cutting edge new tech. They were insanely expensive and crappy as hell. They often faced limitations in functionality because a lot of websites did not accommodate them. I know because I bought two of them 5.5 years ago and it was $2000 worth of computers and lots of stuff just did NOT work.

Today, you can get a tablet for under $50 and Google is (or has) split its search stuff into PC and mobile search and is actively optimizing stuff for mobile because mobile search is eating the world. I seriously doubt anyone expected mobile to take over like this when it was new tech.

In contrast, "net books" seem to have gone extinct. I think that was supposed to be The Next Big thing -- until tablets came out and began eating their lunch.

[andars]

5 years ago, over 100 million tablets had been sold worldwide and the iPad was entering its 4th generation. Your description is more apt for 10 years ago.

[Mz]

Well, according to Wikipedia, the history of tablets goes back to the 1800s. But I know for a fact that I bought two tablets on December 31st, 2011 that were priced at $2000 (after getting a 2 year internet service contract plus a 20% employee discount to reduce the price, I paid $800 up front) and it was kind of the hot new item at the time. And I know for a fact that proliferation of apps we have now was not the norm back then. I had enormous difficulty getting things done on it and I noticed that painfully because I essentially had no other access to computers at the time. I can now do all kinds of things on a tablet bought for under $50 that I could only dream of and wish for 5 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers

Humorously:

"Mobile to overtake fixed Internet access by 2014" was the huge headline summarising the bold prediction from 2008 by Mary Meeker...

http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketi...

[giobox]

The first generation iPad launched close to two years before your example in 2010 at $499.

I agree with the previous remarks - the tablet industry was pretty well established 5 years ago and hardly cutting edge tech - 10 years ago is definitely a better comparison at this point, with the crappy tablet devices Microsoft were pushing at much higher price points then.