Cutting edges are crude technologies
My grandmother was born in 1902 and lived through an entire century. When I would ask her about the changes she had seen, I could see the wonder as she described the automobile, the aeroplane, the radio, and the man on the moon.
I was born in 1969. In the early 70's, my dad brought home a fanfold printout of the original smiley face. By 1984, I had a Macintosh, and by 1989, I was managing a network of IBM PCs and exchanging notes with customers and friends on Compuserve. Since then, very little has changed. The Internet took off in 1993. Yahoo organized the web in 1994, and by 1995, Alta-Vista helped me search it. Progressive Networks launched Real Audio in 1995, and Real Video in 1997. Microsoft released Netshow 1.0 in 1996, realized it sucked, and acquired VXtreme in 1997.
A decade later, these technologies are still crude. The first manmade tool was a cutting edge, and since then, the bulk of civilization's technologies are only incremental improvements. I'd argue it's been thirty years since a new technology--the microwave, in 4% of American households in 1974, and 60% in 1976, or the pager in 1974--has dramatically changed our way of life. Air travel is slower since the decommissioning of the Concorde. Broadcast television is still a better way to serve the same show to a billion people. MPEG4 Advanced Video Coding (MPEG4 AVC) is still as blocky as a child's kaleidoscope when you look closely.
But while we're waiting for the next bread slicer, Advection.NET is trying to make streaming media just a little better. Hopefully we'll help refine the streaming media equivalent of a flint needle or a cotton thread, and maybe even sew a button or two for the emperor.
In the meantime, service providers will keep building bigger kilns with sharper flints and more malleable clay, consumers will keep buying better pottery with their seashells and beads, and we'll keep grabbing the talking stick and having something to say about it.