There is a fad every few years that uses similar thinking to justify spending. Sometimes they work out sometimes they don't. But they never work out as good as the most optimistic predictions.

I commented on wasteful AI spending, and my father immediately started talking about how he "went through that a couple of times" as a manager at an oil company.

The unusual thing is perhaps how global and cross industry it seems.

> Sometimes they work out sometimes they don't

Genuinely asking: for which fads was it actually beneficial to jump in during the hype phase? Was there ever anything so critical that there was some huge disadvantage if you didn't adopt it right away?

ETA: I suppose the complicating factor, at least for B2B, is "customers demanding $fad", particularly when the purchasing decision makers don't actually understand what $fad is (e.g., "cloud", "blockchain", "ai", ...). If you don't become "$fad native" right away, you lose the Dunning-Kruger segment of the market.

Usually, someone extracts genuine value at the expense of everything else IMO. And the enshittification continues apace.