[cwillu]

There's a lot of hype and misinformation. For one, there haven't been any quantum computers built that could be remotely considered “powerful”. The theoretical basis is solid, and there have been plenty of proofs of concept, but nothing has yet been built which solves actual real-world problems any better than any analog computer would (let alone better than the digital computers we're having this conversation over).

The combination of the massive asymptotic-scaling potential, the subtleties of just what that scaling could and could not accomplish, and the engineering difficulties in actually implementing that scaling, make a wonderful soil for the weeds of know-it-all skeptics and know-nothing enthusiasts to grow and choke out the slower growing… ‹gives up on the terrible metaphor› :p