> I meant that some people are innovating, but that the overall trend has been towards sameness and value extraction. Many superficially novel offerings are onl

> I meant that some people are innovating, but that the overall trend has been towards sameness and value extraction. Many superficially novel offerings are only stylistically different. I think you're half-right, but the most exciting thing happening right now in technology are some of the expensive cool technologies turning into commodities. This doesn't have the "wow!" factor of new breakthroughs, but is an important step. Soon-ish (10 years?) everyone will own a smartphone, which means a computer in your pocket. That's pretty cool. Also, the mobile web stuff is pretty cool, and the ability to get high end scalable cloud hosting for relatively cheap is cool. These aren't major breakthroughs the way social news was, the way better search was, the way better email was, etc. I do see less of those, but new competition and collapsing prices in cool technologies is a really good thing, even though it doesn't set off the wow factor so much.