Technology can transform our lives – the move from physical servers to cloud storage allows workers to access their work files from anywhere. But some tech products just don’t work out.

The list of technology failures below shows that even seemingly great ideas backed by millions of dollars may flop in the end.

illustration by Anatolii Babii

MoviePass

Do you remember thinking MoviePass was just too good to be true? The defunct business allowed customers to watch a movie in a theater every day for a month for only $10. That’s less than what a single movie ticket costs in 2021.

Naturally, millions of Americans thought this was an incredible deal and signed up. But the business model was crazy; the company gave the total ticket cost to the movie theaters, but consumers were forking out pennies per film.

Nothing too good to be true can last; in 2018, the film company said it lost millions of dollars per month, per its SEC filing.

In 2019, MoviePass went belly up, but hackers breached its servers and stole millions of customers’ credit card data as a parting gift.

Like many startups in the early 2000s, this company was obsessed with growth over profits while subsidizing customers to see deeply discounted movies. The business couldn’t last.

Amazon Fire Phone

Amazon is seemingly everywhere, and because smartphones are one of the most ubiquitous devices in the world, Amazon wanted a piece of the pie.

It launched the Fire Phone in 2014, and it came out with a lot of fanfare. But even though it ran on solid Android technology, it was discontinued the following year.

The public wasn’t sold on its technology, and it was a failure both commercially and critically. It did feature innovative 3D technology for scanning faces for better security, but it only had limited availability with certain carriers.

After this massive failure, Amazon exited the cell phone market and never came back.

Google Glass

Google Glass was a HUD built into a pair of glasses so that the data you might see on your smartphone would be right before your eyes.

Google sold a Google Glass prototype in 2013 for $1500, and it was released the following year. However, there were many technical problems with Glass, and privacy worries led to many businesses banning the product in their stores.

Today, Google Glass is offered only as an Enterprise Edition, but this product mostly flopped.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Samsung has made many great smartphones, but no one’s perfect, right? The Note 7 looked like yet another brilliant Samsung phone...until it started to blow up. That’s right, people’s cell phones literally caught on fire, scorching their pants, burning their nightstands, and airline passengers even had a few catch fire as well.

Samsung recalled the phone, but it eventually killed the product and blamed terrible batteries. While the 7 was a disaster, Samsung succeeded with its Note 8, 9, and 10 phones.

Kanoa Wireless Headphones

It isn’t every day that a single negative review can bankrupt a multimillion-dollar company. Unfortunately, that’s what unfolded with this company’s wireless headphones that never saw public release.

The mess started in 2015 when Kanoa couldn’t manufacture a headphone prototype that its backers would support. After they came up with a prototype in 2016, they sent a pair to a well-known YouTube product reviewer named Cody Crouch.

His video became legendary for tearing apart the headphone’s many flaws. For example, the product couldn’t connect to the reviewer’s phone after many attempts, and the battery wouldn’t charge in the charging case.

Another problem: Kanoa attempted to bribe Crouch with $500 to give them a good review. That was the end of Kanoa Wireless Headphones!

Technology often transforms our lives for the better, but sometimes products fail. But most companies learn lessons from their failures and bounce back with better products.