Quantum supremacy is a technical term, which they achieved. It is an important milestone but it is not a working useful quantum computer, or anything even remotely close to one.
That's sort of my point: Every day we're making huge progress yet nothing actually changes. We have achieved quantum supremacy, but don't have a practical device yet. We are sick of winning but have not won yet. Every stone is a milestone, but we're 1bn miles from the actual goal so...
I don't think it is. I think if someone says they have a computer, it needs to be a computer, not a very large slide rule. The same applies to "breakthroughs" and "milestones": a non-quantum computer is never a breakthrough in quantum computers the same way a slide rule isn't in computers.
I think we're talking in circles, I just don't get how anyone can take these things seriously...
But quantum supremacy is not a general purpose quantum computer or anything close to one. At best its a proof of concept that you can do something a classical computer cannot. Certainly a neccesary condition, but miles upon miles away from a practical quantum computer.
Maybe the point is that the press/computers really ran with the "quantum supremacy" thing and severely mislead people as to what it actually means. Which i would agree with.
I think you are correct. There was so much money floating about no one bothered checking the value of anything (or the truthfulness of claims) and the key to getting funded was promises and claims not results and prototypes.
There also seems to be a bigger and bigger gap between expectation and reality in society in general that people are just fine ignoring (I'd cite climate change policy or deficits as examples of endless promises and zero delivery).
Quantum computing is making slow progress. It is a marathon not a sprint.