Originally Posted by Darth Lefty

Marketers are trying to maximize their company's sales by getting you to see some need that you didn't before, that they can fill. This is why the actors grimace as they fight with the old way of doing things in infomercials. Marketers have wins and losses, for every McNugget there's an Edsel. In bikes, adding a cog to the cassettes every six or eight years seems to be a win for them, even though it's pretty hard to see how a 2x11 system is really superior to a 2x7 of the same overall ratio. Sometimes it's really to our benefit, like indexing* or freehubs. Market segmentation helps them sell more things. Does 650B solve some problems? Probably not much. Maybe enough to sell some bikes, though. I think tubeless probably has more ultimate potential. They are being marketed together for mountain bikes, and much of what goes into commuter bikes trickles down from mountain bikes, because it's durable and adaptable.

*tastes vary