was rebuffed with the comment "the wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (Famous Predictions)

Even Lee DeForest, the inventor of television was unable to assess its potential. "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility", he remarked. (Famous Predictions)

In the case of the internet, the world was too quick to anoint it as a transactional vehicle of e-commerce, rather than the communications medium it really is.
The good news is that as a result of the e-commerce focus, the internet attracted much more attention from the "brick and mortar" companies than it might traditionally warrant.