Look at us as an example though. We've had radio for a little over 200 years and already realize its limitations. Smoke signals will have been around for a lot

Look at us as an example though. We've had radio for a little over 200 years and already realize its limitations. Smoke signals will have been around for a lot longer than radio. Smoke signals will have been around for 99.9% of the timeline and then 0.1% radio before quantum. To an outside observer it would look like radio was just skipped. If you scale human civilization into a 1 year time frame we invent radio at 3PM on December 31st.