Originally Posted by
2muchroad
Sure, but that's not the point.
The point is that R&D resources should be utilized for technological innovation, not the unnecessary and repeated refinements of an already complete technology, in this case electronic shifters.
The reason for this isn't ingenuity or technological progress, but corporate greed. Finding another reason to charge exorbitant sums for that next best thing. Of course you don't have to buy it, but that's not stopping the market from being manipulated in this manner.
In theory yes, but at the end of the day we are dealing with bikes and it would be insane to reinvent the wheel. At a certain point we see all of these incremental increase because like in computer tech Moore's Law is dead. Thus carbon can only be so light before becoming unsafe and shifts can only be so quick before new chain tech or before bikes move away from chains. So yes some of this is pure marketing, but a lot of it is iterative stuff because at the end of the day these are bikes and there isn't that much to actually improve on period