How about a counterexample? Drones? Human flying (Zapata Flyboard Air, Gravity's jetpack)? Life expectancy increasing steadily? And we do have cryogenics.
The answer to "what happened to them" is the same as "what happened to curing cancer?": those things are hard. And assuming that we would have solved them by now if people had spent their valuable time on those problems instead of making ads better is just wishful thinking. Throwing more brains at a problem won't solve it more quickly, especially if those brains weren't interested in solving that particular problem in the first place (if they were they would be working on it).
The answer to "what happened to them" is the same as "what happened to curing cancer?": those things are hard. And assuming that we would have solved them by now if people had spent their valuable time on those problems instead of making ads better is just wishful thinking. Throwing more brains at a problem won't solve it more quickly, especially if those brains weren't interested in solving that particular problem in the first place (if they were they would be working on it).