It seems that a true revolution happens not when someone invents a new thing, but when someone figures out how to make it useful to masses. Printing press is much older than Gutenberg. Steam engine is much older than Watt.
For whatever it's worth, the framework I use to discuss innovation/what succeeds is the balanced breakthrough model, afaik, credited to Larry Keeley at the Doblin Group.
Basically, the gist is that to be successful,
idea/offering/product/service needs to not only be 1) technologically advanced, yet feasible, but also 2)desirable from a user perspective and 3)viable from a business perspective.
Only when you put strongly advanced yet feasible, desirable and financially viable innovations out there do you get really successful and revolutionary advances.
Lots of cool tech fails to make an impact because it doesn't solve a need or can't be clearly fit into a business case – and you can repeat that story for any of the three key parts of this model.
It seems obvious, right? Except you can point to an endless string of failures, big and small, that clearly didn't account for at least one of those three parts.
It seems that a true revolution happens not when someone invents a new thing, but when someone figures out how to make it useful to masses. Printing press is much older than Gutenberg. Steam engine is much older than Watt.