20 Products That Failed Even Though They Were Actually Pretty Good

If there's one thing that we've learned about the success of a product - it's that branding has as much, if not more, to do with its success over its quality on any day of the week.

Take a look at Beats headphones, even though there are plenty of better and more affordable options on the market, people go gaga for the headphones. Why? Because their presentation and branding are on point. I remember seeing my first pair of Beats headphones and going, "dayuuumm."

Now, there are some products that have, unfortunately, suffered the opposite fate of the Dr. Dre-promoted sonic ear-wear, as pointed out by these fine Redditors in a recent post. They shared some of the best products that didn't deserve to fail the way they did.

YikYak. It was fun in a dumb way and you could talk sh-t and complain anonymously and then they tried to turn it into social media and they killed it.

- ohmygod_my_tinnitus

Well I don’t if this counts as a “product,” but Princess and the Frog by Disney was considered a failure because it didn’t make as much money as they had hoped it would. Which was the final push for them to stop making 2D movies

- tritney

Altoids Sours...especially tangerine 

-  Lex-Talionis

There's even a petition to bring them back.

Vault soft drink from Coca-Cola. Then they pulled it and pushed Mello Yello in its place. I still miss it.

- jonnyfixit

I think it had more to do with the fact that it was named "vault" and came out at a time were there were other green sodas on the market.

Pebble smartwatches, they recently stopped being supported by Fitbit. I don't think I will be getting another smartwatch for a very long time.

- DiscombobulatedSpork

PS Vita, for f--ks sake it was a portable PS3, it supported most games and had awesome graphics and processing for a handheld device, but Sony didn’t give a shit about it and never realized the good games it was capable of supporting, people weren’t gonna buy a console for 3 good games so it failed, I still got mine :(

- StarFire1221

A bunch of Wendy's old menu items, specifically their Spicy Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Strips, and Frosty Milkshakes. I remember I lost 2 teeth on the same chicken strip when I was a kid, it was that good!

EDIT: No people, Wendy's still has regular Frosties (vanilla and chocolate). It's Frosty Shakes that they got rid of.

- Anonigmus

Zune.

And I usually find Microsoft stuff to be pretty crappy, if I'm honest.

- ActingGrandNagus

There was just no way they were going to win the war against the iPod at that point.

A vaccine for Lyme disease.  https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness

-  level 1Cha05_Th30ry

 

The Sega Dreamcast.

It was the first console in the "6th generation" of consoles. It came out in 1999, a year before the PS2 and two years before the Xbox and GameCube. Because it was the first, it also had the worst specs, compared to those other consoles. At the time, it was a pretty impressive machine.

The biggest flaw with the Dreamcast was the controller. I think if they had changed up the controller it would have had much better success. It had some really good games in its library too, stuff like "Record of Lodoss War." It just had much stronger competition and better systems came out, leading to its failure.

My brother still has his Dreamcast, and aside from the bad controller, we still love the games he had on it.

EDIT: As many have pointed out, there were other big flaws but 7-year-old me just really hated that controller and the cord coming out of the bottom.

- theonlydidymus

General Motors EV1. It was a great electric car with a good range (edit: for its time), and people loved it. It was revolutionary in the 90’s. Then General Motors repo’d all of them and crushed them. It shouldn’t‘ve been a failure. But it was, because GM made it a failure.

- cravingcinnamon

I always wondered why this tanked. It was so ridiculously popular for so long. I suspect people began to spend more time watching Vine compilations on YouTube than watching actual Vines on Vine.

- __celli

There was a pancake batter in a whipped cream can I used to buy. It was great, you didn’t need to make a ton of batter just to have some pancakes (good for single people and college students), and it used good quality ingredients (and tasty!).

The reason it failed, I think, was because it was sold exclusively though Whole Foods (IIRC), which isn’t the best market for pancake batter in a whipped cream can.

That, and it was called “Batter Blaster.”

- Headytexel

MoviePass such a great idea, I wanted it to work so badly but its model is just unsustainable

- Rainbowmitten37 

Just canceled one myself. I've had mine for 8 months and have yet to use it successfully.

I loved my Windows phone. The haptic feedback on the keyboard was the most satisfying thing ever.

The Windows 8 scheme worked great on it, better than it ever did on a computer. Being able to reshape and organize the apps was great. Being able to choose between colors and themes was great.

The camera on it was great for its time.

Except it had no apps! Literally nothing good was ever ported to it, and the Windows store just sucks in general.

Switched to an iPhone after any contract ended. It's satisfying enough for me.

- movie_maker_boy

The Xbox Kinect.

First developed for the 360. Instead of showcasing its capabilities, they just went full Microsoft and crammed it down everyone’s throats by making it required hardware for the Xbone launch.

Less than two years later, it was dead tech.

Whoever ran that campaign should never work in marketing again.

- big_russ_kane

Bounce dryer bars you would stick on the inside of your dryer and last for over a month replacing individual sheets.

- TrapperCrapper

Freespace 2. It was the greatest space sim of all time, with an amazing story, amazing multiplayer, and phenomenal graphics, but it was released when space sims were on the way out. Volition ended up filing for bankruptcy, and the IP is stuck in legal hell, so no word on if we'll ever get a FS3.

- albus_scirocco

Dude, I forgot those existed. Now I really want some.

- Iamtotallynotatwork

Google Glass, they were just rushed before their time. Now, we rarely even hear about them, although Google says they’re making a comeback.

- Alastairos

What are your some of your favorite great products that didn't catch on? For me it's MHP Dark Matter post-workout and the Blueberry Cobbler flavor at Dunkin' Donuts. Actually, it's probably better those donuts don't exist because I'd have multiple limbs amputated from all the diabetes.