Sailing Ship Effect Sometimes the advent of a new technology stimulates a competitive response, and by virtue of Herculean efforts, driven by desperation, the incumbent technology manages to improve its performance way beyond the limits.
For example, in the 50 years after the introduction of the steam ship, sailing ships made more improvements than they had in the previous 300 years. Ward, “The Sailing ship effect”.
But these efforts are doomed, as the new technology has much more potential for improvement. These efforts can hold off extinction for a while, but eventually fail.
Did a similar effect took place with the publicly funded human genome project in the face of private competition?
Difussion and Adpotion | 
