I've recently finished reading Airport by Arthur Hailey. There are lots of things I could say about the book, but in this context I want to point one specific aspect I found highly significant. Clearly, Hailey and his character considered aviation in 1968 to be a rapidly developing field. There are portions of the book where people discuss the future of aviation and various promising technologies (like supersonic jets, passenger pods, hydraulic plane-lifting platforms, etc.). To the best of my knowledge, not a single one of those technologies is in a wide-spread use today. The fundamental premises of an airport today are exactly what they were in 1968. Obviously, there are way more computers and way more "security", but neither changed the core dynamics of how people move around.
I find it fascinating how we're constantly fed information slop about amazing pace of current technological progress. However, when you take a look at what people in the recent past actually wanted, looked forward to and actively developed, you often find that our society utterly failed to meet those technological goals.