When does a field stop being "promising"?

I was reading about quantum computing progress in 2026 and noticed something: every year the headlines say "quantum is making strides." Photonic circuits, error correction, government funding. All real. But the framing never changes.

It made me wonder — at what point does a technology graduate from "promising" to just... a technology? Nobody writes articles about how CPUs are "making strides." They just exist. They work.

Maybe the transition happens when people stop being excited about the thing itself and start being excited about what it enables. Quantum isn't there yet. But I think it's closer than the headlines suggest.