This is how technology boom-bust cycles work, so I don't think it's different this time.
"All major industries go through an innovation life cycle. They provide a fundamentally new product or service when they first appear, then as their use becomes more widespread their changes to the world become even more fundamental. Later on however, while capital flows to them in vast profusion, their innovations become more marginal, although there is still money to be made. Finally, generally after a monumental shakeout with many bankruptcies and much capital destroyed, they settle into maturity, in which innovations are minor, their products commoditized and they grow only in line with the global economy, while innovation shifts to some other sector. Silicon Valley, the source of growth and inspiration for the last four decades, is about to shift into this last phase. The transition will be painful.
We saw this cycle first with the advent of steam power. The first steam engines, invented by Thomas Savery in 1698 and Thomas Newcomen in 1712, were used primarily to pump water out of mines and were very inefficient. Then the separate condenser of James Watt’s 1774 engine improved the engines’ efficiency enough to widen their use, while the higher boiler pressure of Richard Trevithick's 1804 engine allowed it to power a locomotive.
The second, world-changing period of steam power came after Watt’s and Trevithick’s innovations, which led to steam-powered mills and railways, the first being the Stockton-Darlington line of 1825. There followed a period of immense innovation and prosperity, with both factories and railroads appearing in immense profusion, absorbing gigantic amounts of capital and powering stock market booms in 1825, 1836 and 1845. The culmination of this period was the opening of the U.S. transcontinental railroad in 1869, the ultimate application of gigantic amounts of capital to steam-powered technology."
http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/thebearslairview?art_id=10747
