Dial-up modems reached their full 56kbps potential in 1997, and going further required something completely different. It happened naturally to satisfy demand, and was done by many of the same companies and people; the change was technological, not sociological.

I think we're probably still far from the full potential of LLMs, but I don't see any obstacles to developing and switching to something better.

I don't think that comparison works very well at all.

We had plenty of options for better technologies both available and in planning, 56k modems were just the cost effective/lowest common denominator of their era.

It's not nearly as clear that we have some sort of proven, workable ideas for where to go beyond LLMs.

> Dial-up modems reached their full 56kbps potential in 1997

That's simply not true. Modems were basically the same tech in the dsl era, and using light instead of electricity is a very gradual refinement.

> we're probably still far from the full potential of LLMs

Then how come the returns are so extremely diminishing?

> I don't see any obstacles to developing and switching to something better.

The obstacle is that it needs to be invented. There was nothing stopping newton from discovering relativity either. We simply have no idea what the road forward even looks like.