I agree with that, but I also have the experience of visiting my sister in 1995 and asking her if she understood the funny string at the bottom of a Toyota commercial that was a URL. She did not. And her only email address was one she had for work, because everyone else either wrote letters or talked with her on the phone.
The point I'm trying to make is that many things of the current wave will pass into obscurity and perhaps ridicule, however some core concepts may emerge as foundational for the next wave. Further, experience with those concepts in the Bay Area may inform what is core and what isn't, and so launch better products.
Clearly a lot do, but the concept, once shared, seems to live on. I find it particularly amusing that EBay, which pretty much defined the market for selling your junk online, has now moved so far that there are new startups like "LetGo" and the other one with the name I can never remember trying to be in this space. The concept continues, and the technology to implement it evolves.
As for the question, greed always hijacks progress, that is the lesson of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The point I'm trying to make is that many things of the current wave will pass into obscurity and perhaps ridicule, however some core concepts may emerge as foundational for the next wave. Further, experience with those concepts in the Bay Area may inform what is core and what isn't, and so launch better products.