Which doesn't detract at all from the fact that there were a dozen major search players - including AltaVista - that Google bested to take over the market, courtesy of a radically superior product. None of that should have happened if the op premise were correct. The search market was more than saturated.

Turns out one of the many flaws in the op premise, is that you can invent a superior product, or provide a superior service, in an existing category and prosper accordingly. The iPod should have never existed otherwise, there were plenty of existing mp3 players.

It pertains to the traditional physical space as well as tech. Pizza companies as an example have been killing each other for a long time, new ones rise up routinely and displace weak competitors. If the op premise were correct, that'd be impossible. Pizza Hut & Domino's were founded a quarter century before Papa John's.