In a sense what Clay Shirky was saying is that communication technologies don’t become socially interesting until they become platforms.  That is until they become pervasive and stable enough for other people to rely upon them and build upon them.

So what would it mean for people to rely upon renewable energy?

Keeping An Eye On Boring Technology | OnTheSpiral

Make sure to click through, the argument is worth following through. But the key question, where it get’s really interesting, is indeed when something is not technical novelty, but pervasive, normal, mundane in the truest sense of the word.