Explore the fascinating journey towards understanding turbulence in this comprehensive colloquium talk. Delve into the complex world of subcritical shear flows, examining recent developments in experiments, simulations, and theory that establish a connection between transition in these flows and directed percolation. Learn about precise critical points for systems without linear instabilities and how to characterize the onset of turbulence using universal power laws. Discover the physics behind complex turbulent structures observed near transition and gain insights into outstanding questions in the field. The talk covers topics such as critical Reynolds numbers, wall-bounded shear flows, intermittent turbulence, statistical phase transitions, and the mechanism for localization in turbulent flows.