"Innovation-speak" is a mode of language that frames constant novelty as inherently good and urgently necessary, often detached from whether anything useful is actually produced. It functions to sell products, justify spending, and signal virtue rather than to describe real technological change.
The vast majority of technological activity is the upkeep, repair, and ordinary operation of existing things rather than the creation of new ones, yet maintenance receives little prestige, attention, or funding. Prioritizing novelty over care leads to decaying infrastructure and accumulating hidden costs.
Invention is the creation of a new device or method, while innovation in common usage conflates invention with commercial success and broad adoption. Treating them as the same inflates the importance of the new idea and obscures the large amount of labor required to sustain and spread any technology.
Skipping upkeep is not saving money but borrowing against the future: postponed repairs compound into larger, more expensive failures later. Budgets that cut maintenance to fund flashy new projects therefore trade visible short-term gains for invisible long-term liabilities.
The people who keep systems running (janitors, repair technicians, operators) are systematically paid less and respected less than those who design or launch new things, despite being essential to function. This status hierarchy reflects a cultural bias toward the glamorous new over the necessary ongoing.
Judging a technology by its moment of invention or launch misses most of what determines its real value, which unfolds over years of operation, repair, and eventual decay. Asking "who will maintain this, and at what cost?" reveals liabilities that excitement about the new conceals.