"Corporate research evolved in the 1990s from the invention of science fiction to creating scientific and technological fact (...) the wonders science fiction authors predicted for around the year 2000 - such as mass transportation to the moon and glass-doomed cities on the ocean floor - are within the grasp of modern technology. However, he adds, they are not about to come to pass. The reason: "[writers] forgot the marketing dimension. Nobody is out there that is willing or capable of paying for that"

Wolf-Ekkehard Blanz quoted by Robert Buderi in "Engines of Tomorrow: How the World's Best Companies are Using Their Research Labs to Win the Future" That is why some sci-fi authors prefer to write about things that CAN happen, about problems that could occur in the current situation of R&D prototypes.