If 2016 was the year of âUber for X,â 2017 was the year of Silicon Valley âinventingâ things.
If 2016 was the year of âUber for X,â 2017 was the year of Silicon Valley âinventingâ things.
The tech industry officially ran out of ideas this year. Rather than tacking on some tech element to things that already exist, it edged closer to just renaming the things that already exist. To be fair to Silicon Valley, it rarely claims to have âinventedâ anything. âDisrupting shitâ is the preferred vernacular. But so many new ideas this year werenât really innovating or improving much of anything. If thereâs anything that the top âinventionsâ accomplished in 2017, itâs finding a way to make rich people feel good about paying too much money for something that previous innovations made affordable for most.
As more and more of these dumb contraptions from startups hit the news, it became a common refrain on the internet to lol at X company for having âinventedâ something. Only one tiny group needed any of these things: startups and venture capitalists. As TechCrunch put it back in October, 2017 marked âthe end of the startup era.â Rather than a few guys cooking up something in a garage that blows the world away, we have startups latching on to a few categories of hot development hoping to sell out as soon as possible to one of the big five tech giants.
The big boys werenât immune to dumping stale ideas on the public either. When they werenât copying each other, or adding tiny tweaks to their current products, the tech juggernauts were mostly focused on taking over existing industries while adding little of value.
From the bowels of Amazonâs research & domination department to the kitchen tables of deluded startup bros, here are 2017's most unoriginal and infuriating ideas:
10. The helicopter
Every year it becomes more clear that weâre never going to get flying cars. But every year, a handful of companies claim that theyâll be putting you behind the wheel of one in the very near future. Uber, the worldâs most valuable startup, announced that it will be launching a flying taxi service in Los Angeles by the year 2020. Ya know, itâs Uber for flying cars. Concept designs were like every other âflying car,â itâs just a helicopter/drone thing that requires a pilot and that only rich people will ever be able to afford. On top of that, NYC already has an Uber for helicopters. To Uberâs credit, this was one of the smartest things it did this year.
9. The mailbox
This one barely skirts the line of falling into the specific category weâre talking about here. A lot of people actually want their apartment building to have a mailbox thatâs just for Amazon packages. It would be convenient, and help prevent package theft. But Amazonâs âHubâ service is still just a mailbox. And as Amazon gobbles up every piece of every industry, it doesnât sound like such a great idea to let them build out dedicated infrastructure that keeps us all inside its walled garden.
8. The low-rise building
You could also just call this a building. Maybe you want to call it a corporate campus, thatâs cool too. Google prefers to call it a âlandscraperâ or a âhorizontal skyscraper.â Granted, the new headquarters that Google is building in London is a really big building â 1,082 feet long, holding 7,000 workers â but itâs just a building. Whatâs more, the landscraper is the opposite of what we need right now. Densely populated metropolitan areas need big tall buildings to make the best use of space, keep rents low, make public transportation more efficient, and countless other reasons. Googleâs landscraper is 11 stories tall. It will include an innovative elevator that goes sideways as well as up and down, though. Of course, if it were a regular skyscraper, the elevator would only need to move vertically. Two useless inventions in one!
7. The bus
Imagine this: an automobile travels along a set route at all times, it stops along that route, and you can get in and ride along that route as a way to get within walking distance to your destination. Because other people are doing this along with you, the cost of the ride is reduced. Itâs called Lyft Shuttle. But before that, it was called a city bus. And when it was the bus, it cost less per ride, was subsidized by the public, accommodated more people, and was financially viable for low-income passengers. Proceeds from the bus went back into the system that keeps the bus running, not into the coffers of a VC fund. Great job, Lyft.
6. Roommates
Of all of the mega-funded startups out there, WeWork probably baffles me the most. With an $18 billion valuation, itâs worth more than SpaceX. But unlike Elon Muskâs rocket startup, WeWork has no moonshot ideas. It just rents real estate and brands properties.  WeLive is its communal housing offshoot. A bunch of people live in a place and share common areas. This is called âco-livingâ in the world of WeWork. In the real world, itâs called having roommates. If you elect to have a roommate rather âco-livingâ with someone, it tends to be cheaper, and you get to choose your own decor.
5. The teapot
I donât drink tea, so there might be a difference between a teapot and a tea infuser, but itâs all a teapot to me. Teforiaâs line of internet-connected teapots wasnât supposed to be Uber for tea, it was supposed to be Keurig for tea. Like Keurig, Teforia made a product thatâs more wasteful than doing it the old-fashioned way, and it used a closed ecosystem of buying tea from Teforia. Gizmodoâs former resident Brit Libby Watson does drink tea.  She found that the $400 Teforia Leaf made a tea that was inferior to what she made with her handy $7 infuser and none of its internet of things features were useful. After raising $17 million in funding, Teforia shut down. And now a handful of people have a $400 teapot.
4. The storage locker
MakeSpace has raised $57 million for its âcloud storage for physical stuff.â If that sounds like a storage locker, thatâs because it is. MakeSpace has been going since 2013, and this year it had a âcompletely amicableâ executive reshuffle. It didnât invent âcloud storage for physical stuff,â and it didnât invent a new way to quietly whisper âthings arenât okay.â
3. The tent
Long days at the office, terrible sleep habits, caffeinated delirium, and open office space has us all wanting to crawl into a hole and die. Or at least, take a nap. Thatâs where Odd Companyâs Pause Pod came in. Itâs a portable âprivate pop-up space free from stressful moments.â Itâs a tent â a tent that you open in the middle of the office, and all your co-workers wonder if youâre jerking off inside.
2. The vending machine
Bodega set a record time for a startup to experience public backlash. Itâs an app-enabled vending machine with bougie products that aims to put your beloved, locally owned corner store out of business. âThe vision here is much bigger than the box itself,â Bodegaâs co-founder Paul McDonald told Fast Company. That interview ran on September 13th. On September 14th, Bodega apologized to âto anyone weâve offended.â The apology focused on the name, which the company assured us it had market tested in âLatin American communities,â and 97 percent of respondents didnât think it was offensive. What Bodega missed is that the entire concept is offensive.
1. Hands
Ah Juicero, the top spot was always going to be reserved for you. You were a hilarious ray of sunshine in the middle of a gloomy year, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude. Regarding this list, the only decision to be made was figuring out what Juicero invented that had already been invented. As a $400, internet of things juicer, the logical answer would be that it âinventedâ the juicer. But no, Juicero didnât really juice fruit or vegetables. It squeezed out bags of prepared fruit or vegetable product. You had to buy these bags from Juicero, and some top-notch investigators at Bloomberg found that you could squeeze out the bag with your bare hands just as well as you could with the machine. Juicero CEO Jeff Dunn defended his invention, saying, âhacking consumer products is nothing new.â Itâs not a hack to do the thing a product does with your bare hands. So, Juicero invented hands. Five months and $118.5 million of investment later, Juicero was dead. Dunn was last seen emerging from Burning Man, drinking an expensive snake oil from a company that calls it âraw water.â Take comfort in knowing that Dunn doesnât just take you for a sucker, he happens to be one himself.
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