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Comment by Flankk | Hacker News Reader

> If technology x is replaced by a superior technology y, then technology x naturally goes “extinct.”

That is a gross simplification. Monopolies have a perverse incentive to crush superior technology that might otherwise supplant them. The electric car is just one example. Superior technology does not automatically achieve widespread adoption. If it were that easy nobody would need advice or venture capital.

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It's hard to see change as you're in the midst of it, but take a decade or two and it becomes apparent. Technological replacement is not instant but it does happen inevitably if there is competition or we face societal challenges.

It's a gross simplification of how it normally works in biological systems as well. Not that often that a totally dominant species that occupies the exact same niche appears. If it is a closely related species, if there aren't strict barriers to gene flow (i.e. they can reproduce) the species will just combine and those beneficial characters may or may not get swamped. If the second dominant species doesn't completely occupy the niche, the original is likely to just shift and specialise in a different part of niche - different food, shift in habitat, etc.

There are typically many factors outside of just technical merit and even that can be quite subjective.

But yes, there is also economic power, politics, fashion and all kinds of external pressures that are completely orthogonal to any quality metric.

In real life example fitting isn't as simple as "better at solving a problem". With cars you also have to deal with people psychology which forms an environment of its own

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