Technology evolution

The Evolution of Technology

I have a read a beautiful and succinct explanation of how evolution comes about, applied to technical solutions. It came from here: https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2019/08/09/repatriation_cloud_data/#c_3845568

This is what it says:

It appears very unlikely that any single way of organizing your computing needs and resources will ever be the 100% solution to all people - at least not for very long.

In all healthy, complex ecosystems you invariably find multiple species occupying specific niches, each with nearly perfect efficiency. Most of these specialist species start out as generalists, who moved into a new niche, adapted to it, and outcompeted their generalist brethren. Conversely, an ecosystem with a single, dominant species occupying all available niches is not healthy, and liable to be disrupted by an agressive newcomer.

There is no reason to expect computing is different - after all we do have many historical examples of dominant players (or at least dominant ways of doing things) being upstaged by new technologies and new ideas. Sometimes they disappear completely; sometimes they transform themselves into a specialist, addressing a specific niche. Historically, the only thing which has been certain is that the things will change if you wait long enough.