Most of those innovations however seem to be playing "catch-up" though and there's a huge question mark as to whether most (not necessarily all) of the benefit

Most of those innovations however seem to be playing "catch-up" though and there's a huge question mark as to whether most (not necessarily all) of the benefit goes to capital holders. Even the innovations that do benefit as a percentage how much do they lift living standards by compared to innovations of old? Electricity meant I had light at night; think of your local neighborhood without sewerage, etc. They are also "costing a lot more" in terms of training and intelligence so there's a question mark of how much the average person without capital or privilege can access them. For me there's also a question of whether they are just playing catch up for increase in human population that's happened since the WW2 era - how many are not required if we just reduce population? Per capita are we really better of? There's a reason a lot of people are "nostalgic" for the period before the 1990's. There's also the negative things to consider of all this "innovation" such as environmental degradation, the massive increase in CO2 emissions, etc. The "stagnant" economy (e.g food, land, health care) - the things most people need to survive comfortably have been increasing in cost significantly for most world economies. The innovations you state most of the world's population (who are mostly poor btw) would happily trade away for cheap more nutrient rich food, house, cheaper energy, etc. Not saying hyperloops, blockchains and such aren't cool; I'm just questioning whether technology alone is what improves our quality of life. And all technology requires energy which is generally increasing in cost.