The other providers adapt to this de facto standard or quickly wither away and are forgotten. This is the shakeout part that makes technology such a roller coaster ride. The exciting part is that the crystallizing is usually not clear until about a year after it happens. Transition from Revolution to Evolution Growth doesn't end when an industry crystallizes . . . Crystallizing makes growth possible.
Growth takes on a different form after crystallization.
Pioneers don't make nearly the money that standard bearers do. What has made this cycle unusual is the amount of money being thrown in before the questions have been answered, before the crystallizing stage. By 2001 many Dot-Com questions will have been answered, we'll have lived through a shakeout, and then we'll get to ask new questions based on what survives.