Is cyclicity a part of nature?

Lights out Alice!

Context: When the TV world exploded from analog to digital, it first brought about a need for mass standardisation, which it needed to do meet the exponential surge in demand. But as soon as it became commonplace, people started wanting a more differentiated product to separate themselves from the crowd. Hence companies need to start offering more variety. But as soon as options started increasing, customers didn't find TVs to be a differentiating social status factor anymore and hence just went to buy one of the better options available without needing to go for the best. This again meant the market went towards standardisation. For our case yesterday, when chip manufacturers started bringing their form of innovation to the picture, again the differentiation would arise, maybe for a smaller time period and the market would demand customized and top notch products.

Similar patterns can be seen in US car industry. Initially when nobody had a car in 1900s, Model T was a differentiating factor enough. But slowly, the upper class wanted more discerning cars, which led to coach builders hand building custom cars to specification of customers. In the 70s, OEMs sniffed this trend of giving options and hence started offering large variety right out of factory, aka mass customisation. In the next decade or two, unable to have the same margins with increasing customisation, OEMs started rationalizing customisability. Consumer demand also went towards mass market cars such as sedans and vans. Again, the need for customisability in the current era sees the boom of customisation where we can option trim levels, wheels and countless other mods from factory because OEMs sniffed better margins in this having not offered such options between 2000s to 2010s which had led to the surge in aftermarket performance upgrades.

Not sure if this again violates the golden rule of every industry and business situation is context specific but I think this trend of mass market, no customisation, then large variation and rinse and repeat does occur in most situations.

I am not sure if I am right Alice but I just wanted to put it out there!