This is the kind of change that alters our familiar landscapes and questions our values. Eventually, it reshapes our expectations in harmony with the future it has created. But innovation is naturally disruptive - it is the task of breaking the economic rules and being rewarded, over and over again. This dynamic cycle was elaborated by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpter. According to Schumpeter, a normal healthy economy was not one in equilibrium, but one that was constantly being disrupted and transformed by technological innovation.
History is replete with examples.
Transistor technology disrupted the vacuum-tube industry, the CD killed the needle in the groove, and the Internet is currently reinventing the retail sales industry. An amusing example of this process concerns how the invention of the light bulb led to Ivory soap. In 1879, Procter and Gamble's best seller was candles. But the company was in trouble. Thomas Edison had invented the light bulb.