"I said, well daddy dont you know that things go in cycles The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin like Michael" - A Tribe Called Quest

I think that there is indeed a pendulum effect of over-reaction from one mainstream mindset to the other. But one things is for sure, no company in the past was able to predict what the future would bring - if they did they would have switched their ways. I think the sad fact is that these changes in mainstream mindset are very fluid and hard to predict and survival of the fittest company/solution is very much a game of chance.

This might be a reason for the longevity of larger companies like GE that can afford to have many bets on the table.