[hyperpallium]

Crossing the Chasm (Moore) suggests different phases in adoption - when entering the mainstream (after enthusiasts's love of the tech itself, and visionary's grabbing the tech's benefits ahead of everyone else) pragmatists wait until they see who will win. Therefore, in this phase, speed of acquiring marketshare is everything - not tech, not benefits.

Moore generalized this theory from actual startups, so he has lots of examples, but from decades ago (like apple and oracle when they were new). I'd think it would apply to today, just faster - though no one ever seems to cite it.

eg IBM lost RDB to Oracle, even though they invented it. Perhaps all the competitor's to pg's viaweb, who lost to it (note: they employed an expensive PR firm; it wasn't just lisp tech).