Yeah, the short-lived GPU deprecation cycle does feel very relevant here.

I'm still a fan of the railroad comparisons though for a few additional reasons:

1. The environmental impact of the railroad buildout was almost incomprehensibly large (though back in the 1800s people weren't really thinking about that at all.)

2. A lot of people lost their shirts investing in railroads! There were several bubbly crashes. A huge amount of money was thrown away.

3. There was plenty of wasted effort too. It was common for competing railroads to build out rails that served the same route within miles of each other. One of them might go bust and that infrastructure would be wasted.