Maybe there is a name for this phenomenon, but it feels like when we add so much productivity via layers of abstraction, even more person-effort gets allocated to the higher levels of abstraction. Because
1. that's where people are most productive / happy / compensated / recognized / safe
2. businesses can confidently project return on investment
How many engineers get to work on a part of the stack that has some room for fundamental breakthroughs or new paradigms? The total number has maybe grown in the last 50 years, but not the proportion?
It's hard to justify an engine swap once there's so much investment riding on the old one, so just not a lot of people are researching how to make that new OS.
That is until a Tesla comes around and shows the market what could be better/faster/cheaper.
Probably not the name you're looking for, but I typically talk about this stuff in terms of local and global maxima. Low-risk optimisation efforts typically get trapped on some local maximum over time, while bold efforts get closer to the global one - the minority that doesn't fail, that is. Applies to build vs buy decisions and business in general quite nicely.
From what I've seen, businesses and projects usually become less risk averse the more established they are - they are economically incentivised towards that.
The silver lining for me is that there is always room for disruptors in this scenario.
How many engineers get to work on a part of the stack that has some room for fundamental breakthroughs or new paradigms? The total number has maybe grown in the last 50 years, but not the proportion?
It's hard to justify an engine swap once there's so much investment riding on the old one, so just not a lot of people are researching how to make that new OS.
That is until a Tesla comes around and shows the market what could be better/faster/cheaper.