[dawnofdusk]

I think the more interesting observation here, although the OP doesn't originally point it out, is that the spread of technology is associated with some sort of utility. Fashion and language seem more subjective: there's not a reason to prefer one over another. But with technology the idea is often that there are better or more productive tools. For example, the steam engine is more productive than the water wheel.

The point of "hype", on the other hand, and the reason to be "hype-optimistic" as the OP is, is that it can result in the spread of technologies that are not necessarily better. In other words, tech hype or marketing will not necessarily spread technologies in a meritocratic way. But actually what many cultural anthropologists know, such as by studying the spread of early human tools, is that there is a wisdom of the crowd effect where large social adoption of suboptimal technology tends to improve that technology unintentionally.

Those who decry "hype" are operating from an engineering background, where good tools are designed from the top down. But "hype" is more like a social force, which can emergently produce better tools from the bottom-up. The latter dynamic is robust yet uncontrollable, but it's definitely a real thing.

[taeric]

I want to give kudos to the OP for seeing that infrastructure matters. The fanciest syphon system in the world doesn't matter if you don't have a way to get water to and from it. (For the toilette example.)

I'm seeing similar with so many people hyping solar power. People are fawning at how useful today's panels are. And they really are. But, that is largely only true if you have all of the other technology that we have to use the power it can generate. And this cuts in multiple amusing ways. Without electric lights, a lot of the power you'd have at home would be wasted. And, without modern electric lights, far more of it is lost in non-light generation than what we see today. (Lights are particularly interesting to look at. The amount of energy used by lights had such an extreme drop off that it is almost hard to really grapple with.)

Directly to your post, fashion and language may seem more subjective, but I question that. Obviously parts of it are driven less by utility and more from some other factors. But that is almost certainly true for technology, as well. Is why many places hold out from technology for longer than others, as an easy example.