If only. Unix would be dead and buried many years ago if it was just a fad. It's far more like the old repeating fertility rituals of many paganistic societies, where your neighbors burn your pagus down to cleanse the village of the spite of the undead grain god if you plowed your heath in a different direction from everyone else.

Just adding here that the understanding of the forces at play in a cultural war makes what you just said even more clear and for a vast spectrum of fields way beyond IT.