Like you, I assume, I'd love to see more remarkable innovation, but the reality of innovation is that it's mostly a slow grind where most of the value is in opt

Like you, I assume, I'd love to see more remarkable innovation, but the reality of innovation is that it's mostly a slow grind where most of the value is in optimizing the current paradigm until it breaks and we have to figure out a new 10x paradigm. There are also dynamic effects where incremental innovation makes future radical/disruptive innovation easier. Since most technologies are combinations of previous technologies, it's rare to find completely new technologies/inventions, and that's ok. The fact that to reach their potential, innovation must be diffused through society also bounds the pace at which it can go. As that infrastructure develops, standards emerge that allow for innovation to be distributed faster. But then, in turn, as the underlying technologies improve incrementally, they also ossify as an infrastructure, which might delay bigger innovations. The question of where the disruption/incrementalism equilibrium lies and what its ideal position can be is very interesting and, I find, understudied.