Innovation is slow because many of the new technologies aren't that transformative.
Some technologies are very transformative. The Internet in 1990s killed much of the paper based printing. When was the last time someone bough a physical accounting ledger? A newspaper? A printed calendar? An encyclopedia? But, it doesn't take long for people to internalize the change, and go about their daily lives. Not thinking about what happened.
Most technologies are just incremental changes. Or, new digital technologies slapped onto old brick and mortar hardware, as upgrades.
We're fairly far into the Internet era at this point but I imagine that even many of the people who lived through the transition appreciate just how different the world is today from the mid-1990s, 25 years ago.
Most didn't have Internet--and for those who did we're mostly talking about things like Usenet. Many didn't even have cell phones, much less Gen 1 smartphones. Most were still navigating using paper maps and written directions. There was very little ecommerce. Many didn't even have home computers, much less broadband. TV was mostly still something you watched in a scheduled way unless you programmed your VCR. Etc.
> When was the last time someone bough[t] a physical [..] newspaper?
Sorry to sound like I'm stuck in a timewarp but we pay for our local newspaper to be delivered three days a week, it's waiting on the doorstep at 6am, I read it as I drink my first coffee.
I could also read the articles online, but the actual physical version is definitely better for our purposes.
Some technologies are very transformative. The Internet in 1990s killed much of the paper based printing. When was the last time someone bough a physical accounting ledger? A newspaper? A printed calendar? An encyclopedia? But, it doesn't take long for people to internalize the change, and go about their daily lives. Not thinking about what happened.
Most technologies are just incremental changes. Or, new digital technologies slapped onto old brick and mortar hardware, as upgrades.