The important thing to take away from that experience is that the detractors were all correct, as far as any extrapolation of then current technology into the future could take them.

I've experienced that cycle several times where I thought "oh this will be big in 10-20 years" and had people say "No, reason x, y, and z all mean it won't happen." and then some discovery or change in the situation made x, y, and z irrelevant.

As a result I've trained my self to look at it "in reverse" as it were, which is to say "currently x, y, and z makes it impossible, what would have to change to make x, y, and z irrelevant?" and then look for changes in the margins. Things like "making oil from corn" is impractical when oil is $35 a barrel but quite reasonable when oil is $150 a barrel. Or 'cracking hydrogen and oxygen' with electrolysis takes more energy than you get back, so how can you exploit 'wasted' energy like sunlight to help it along? etc.

The important thing is to avoid trapping yourself into believing nothing will change that isn't already known. People I've met seem to do this all the time.