This year, in response to the pandemic, people streamed, Zoomed, ordered groceries and houseplants online while navigating laptop shortages to work and learn from home. When it comes to technology, 2020 was a year like no other.
But for all the winners -- like Zoom, e-commerce and video games, there were plenty of losers too. Virtual reality sounded like a good escape, but it never took off. Quibi fizzled and Uber and Lyft saw ridership plummet. As for Big Tech? Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google did well financially. But regulators are breathing down their necks and that's unlikely to ease up next year.
Here are a few of the year's tech winners and losers:
LOSERS:
• Virtual Reality
As the world adjusted to a new stuck-at-home reality, the pandemic could have been virtual reality's chance to offer an escape. With the use of special headsets and accouterments like gloves, the technology lets people interact with a 360 degree view of a three-dimensional environment, seemingly a good fit for people stuck indoors.
But people turned to easier-to-use software and games that they already had. Few rushed to spend hundreds of dollars on a clunky new headset or tried to learn the ropes of virtual reality meeting software.
• Quibi
Less than a year ago, Quibi launched a splashy Super Bowl ad that posed the question "What's a Quibi?" People may still be scratching their heads.
Quibi, short for "quick bites," raised $1.75 billion from investors including major Hollywood players Disney, NBCUniversal and Viacom.
But the service struggled to reach viewers, as short videos abound on the internet and the coronavirus pandemic kept many people at home. It announced it was shutting down in October, just months after its April launch.
• Uber and Lyft
Fresh off of their initial public offerings the year before and still struggling to show they can be profitable, the ride-hailing services were clobbered by the pandemic in 2020, as people stopped taking cars and hunkered down at home.
In May, Uber laid off 3,700 people, or about 14% of its workforce. Lyft also announced job cuts.
• U.S. TikTok ban
While India outlawed the popular video sharing app, in the U.S. TikTok appears close to riding out Donald Trump's term without the president succeeding in his efforts to ban it as a threat to national security.
Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked a potential ban. It was the latest legal defeat for the administration in its efforts to wrest the app from its Chinese owners. In October, another federal judge postponed a shutdown scheduled for November.
Meanwhile, a government deadline for TikTok's parent, ByteDance, to complete a deal that would have Oracle and Walmart invest in TikTok has also passed, with the status of the deal unclear.
WINNERS:
• Nintendo Switch
Even in a year heralding splashy new consoles from Xbox and PlayStation, the Nintendo Switch was the console that could. Launched in 2017, the Switch became a fast seller. That was helped by the launch of the handled Switch Lite in September 2019.
In March, it became hard to find a Switch as people searched for ways to be entertained inside their homes. Boosting its popularity was the release of island-simulation game "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," which debuted March 20 and has now sold a cumulative 26 million units globally, according to Nintendo.
• Zoom
All video conferencing software from Microsoft Teams to WebEx thrived during the abrupt shift of tens of millions of people to remote working and schooling during pandemic. But only one became a verb.
Zoom Video Communications was a relatively unheralded company before the pandemic hit, but its ease of use led to wide adoption during the pandemic. There were some growing pains, including lax security that lead to "Zoom bombing" breaches early on. The company revamped its security and remains one of the popular platforms to host remote meetings and classes.
• Ransomware purveyors
The ransomware scourge -- in which criminals hold data hostage by scrambling it until victims pay up -- reached epic dimensions in 2020, dovetailing terribly with the covid-19 plague.
In the U.S., the number of attacks on health care facilities was on track to nearly double from 50 in 2019. Attacks on state and local governments were up about 50% to more than 150. Even grammar schools have been hit -- shutting down remote learning for students from Baltimore to Las Vegas.
• PC makers
After beginning the year grappling with exasperating delays in their supply chains, the personal computer industry found itself scrambling to keep up with surging demand for machines that became indispensable during a pandemic that kept millions of workers and students at home.
The outbreak initially stymied production because PC makers weren't able to get the parts they needed from overseas factories that shut down during the early stages of the health crisis.
But it has boomed ever since.
• E-commerce
The biggest of the bunch, Amazon, is one of the few companies that has thrived during the coronavirus outbreak. People have turned to it to order groceries, supplies and other items online, helping the company bring in record revenue and profits between April and June.
But it's not just Amazon. The pandemic is accelerating the move to online shopping, a trend experts expect to see even after vaccines allow the world to go back to normal. And thanks in part to shoppers consciously supporting small businesses, Adobe Analytics says online sales at smaller U.S. retailers were up 349% on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
JURY'S OUT:
• Big technology firms
Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google did well financially, with each company's stock price and profit rising considerably since the start of the year. They gained users, rolled out new products and features and kept hiring even as other companies and industries faced significant cuts.
But regulators are breathing down each company's neck and that's unlikely to ease up in 2021. Google faces an antitrust lawsuit from the Department of Justice. And Facebook has been hit by one from the Federal Trade Commission along with nearly every U.S. state that seeks to split it off from WhatsApp and Instagram.
Information for this article was contributed by Frank Bajak and Michael Liedtke of The Associated Press.
