it is also a failure of imagination

You ain't kidding, Helen!

No one could have envisaged how big the Web would get. Even Microsoft, techy of techies, utterly failed and had to run to catch up.

Having said that, apparently Pete Townshend of The Who envisaged something similar in his proposed musical Lifehouse, started in 1971 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_403000/403916.stm

And on the other hand, the business prophets were wrong about the supposed rush to get WAP phones http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_942000/942808.stm - and paid dearly for their mistake!

The latter is an example of a straight line prediction - "the Web is big, mobile phones are big, so the Web via mobile phones will be big". The former is an inspired prediction, that didn't depend upon the existence of anything like what was being predicted at the time of prediction.

There's the distinction I'm trying to make, put another way (keep trying, Fish )