Why big tech keeps betting on the wrong trends

History has a funny way of repeating itself – and in tech, billion-dollar mistakes are the norm.

Mark Zuckerberg's recent leaked admission about missing the boat with TikTok – by being slow to respond to a leaner, meaner competitor – is not the first time such an oversight has happened.

Interestingly in the meeting, a staff member asked if Meta was in danger of falling asleep at the wheel again, as they put all the chips on the table with AI.

Zuckerberg’s divulgence that Meta mistakenly interpreted TikTok as being less social, and more like YouTube suggests a narrowing of focus, or keeping your eye on other prizes – in this case, virtual reality and AI.

However, it’s not the only time in tech where over-attention to one area has led to blind spots elsewhere. Misreckonings happen often with humans, and if we cast our minds back, they’ve happened in the tech industry on an epic scale.

Microsoft’s mobile failure

At the start of the 2000s, Microsoft was the dominant player in computer operating systems, with Windows, and its intrusive character Clippy the Paperclip. With mobiles, it attempted to integrate Windows with HTC, Samsung, and Motorola models – to name but three.

However, their interface was clunky and difficult to use. Their competitors – notably Apple and Google – had already built touchscreen app ecosystems and had invested in iOS and Android respectively.

The iPhone debuted in 2007, and Microsoft was slow to react. It took them until 2010 to introduce their tile-based design, and despite some praise for its innovation, by this point, consumers had already tribally committed to either the iPhone or Android camp.

When Microsoft acquired Nokia’s mobile division in 2014, it was already too late to regain market share. In 2017, Microsoft officially called it quits in the mobile market – by then, its competitors had fully conquered the space.

Google+ and the social flop

Coming late to the party, Google launched Google+ in 2011, hoping to rival Facebook and even adding a ‘Circles’ feature for grouping and categorizing friends. In its first year, hype was rife, and over 100 million users signed up.

Despite this early pump, numbers started dwindling in 2013 as engagement remained too passive. By integrating too many services – like YouTube comments, Google+ Hangouts for video calls, and cross-platform logins – Google+ became overloaded and overbearing compared to the clean simplicity of Facebook.

By 2014, Google’s Andy Rubin admitted that Google+ was undergoing an identity crisis. What followed was a slow, drawn-out demise that ended in 2019 with a complete shutdown.

In hindsight, Google threw too many ingredients into the broth, making Google+ overcomplicated while Facebook stayed lean. Luckily for Google, it was winning big elsewhere – search, browsers (Chrome), video (YouTube), and cloud storage kept it afloat.

Meta’s VR bet: vision or mirage?

As all the virtual reality buzz from the 1990s faded into obscurity, the 2010s brought a resurgence, and Facebook's acquisition of Oculus piqued a lot of interest.

Envisioning VR as the future of social media – when, in reality, it was more suited to gaming – was incredibly exciting but idealistic.

This time round, Zuckerberg tried a different angle and there were various iterations of his vision:

• 2015 – He demonstrated VR avatars interacting at work and in social spaces.
• 2016 – The first Oculus headset launched for $600, making adoption expensive.
• 2018 – He pivoted toward Oculus Go, a standalone VR headset that didn’t require a PC.
• 2021 – He doubled down, rebranding Facebook to Meta and committing $10 billion a year to VR.
• 2022 – The MetaQuest Pro launched at $1,500, flopping due to its high cost and unclear use case.

In early 2024, Apple entered the VR race with the Vision Pro. Early results are mixed, but Apple is only just getting started, and at this point, it’s anyone’s game.

Visionary or delusional? The tech gamble continues

Since toning down its Metaverse ambitions, Zuckerberg has turned to the omnipresent expanse of AI. If Meta leans too heavily on AI-generated posts, chatbots, and synthetic influencers, it risks overwhelming users once again with the noise.

What’s more, TikTok’s rise had nothing to do with AI – it was about cultural relevance. The average TikTok user craves authenticity, not an endless stream of AI-generated interactions.

It will be interesting to see in the coming years whether users embrace or reject synthetic content, as tech giants stand at the crossroads of innovation and alienation.

And while Mark Zuckerberg, quite rightfully, sounds off in company meetings about lessons learned, the question remains: Will his next big bet be a game-changer – or another footnote in tech history?