I always wonder, with articles like this, what really drove these innovations. Like, is it oversimplifying the socioeconomic pressures that drove or impeded these innovations? How did things like labor shortages or resource needs slow down and speed up the development of steam tech. How many parallel steam innovations stalled out or never took hold in other places in the world?

I guess what I'm really wondering is, is this an example of a narrative fallacy where we summarize a chaotic, messy process with a highly uncertain outcome as being linear and inevitable?