At the time there were two camps: tech-optimists who saw the value in a device that brought the power of the internet on top of your view of the world, and the other camp who worried about privacy or the "creep factor" and believed that outweighed any potential benefit.

When Google Glass came out that latter group had more sway culturally and more political power to ban such things. They don't have that as much anymore but that could swing back in their favor again