An issue in my mind is not that innovation has stopped or even slowed. It is rather that the effort needed for innovation seems to be becoming higher as progress is made. You cannot easily put good ideas to practice due to inertia in society and economics, irrational behavior in humans, etc.
For example, for people to switch to a new idea, it is often expected to be 10X better, i.e., allow people to do something they could not do before. In principle, 1.1X better is still better by definition, but it would never see a wide adoption due to higher costs of the people to switch. If the 1.1X idea were the first one to come to market to begin with, it may have been 10X over the existing ones and thus may have seen wide adoption that the reference 1X idea saw. In other words, ideas that are 1.1X better see resistance to adoption due to what is entirely history (= past progress) even though they are ultimately still better by definition.
You and I and this topic are thinking about progress and innovation, and we have something in mind. But our terms mean nothing to the people enacting "innovation."
Capitalism is risk averse and progress oblivious. The figure of merit in capitalism is one number: profit, and you can tweak the margin factor and cross your finger on the sales factor.
There are so many possibilities out there to spring a 2X better plan that won't cost a bundle, but capitalism isn't interested in that kind of better. Merit in capital is about how big a paycheck you can slice off.
I think there are huge amounts of innovation and progress that are easily within reach, radical ways of putting us societally in gear to be able to at any turn provide for ourselves without having to draw from afar. But my merit for progress- tooliness and sustainability for the individual- isn't shared and it's not the kind of progress this world's evolved systems march towards.
Progress requires a definition of a figure of merit, and this world today has lost any sense of what it means to progress except for raking in cash. We need bootstrapping progress so people can be free to unlock new value-systems for themselves.
For example, for people to switch to a new idea, it is often expected to be 10X better, i.e., allow people to do something they could not do before. In principle, 1.1X better is still better by definition, but it would never see a wide adoption due to higher costs of the people to switch. If the 1.1X idea were the first one to come to market to begin with, it may have been 10X over the existing ones and thus may have seen wide adoption that the reference 1X idea saw. In other words, ideas that are 1.1X better see resistance to adoption due to what is entirely history (= past progress) even though they are ultimately still better by definition.