The future of technology advance may be difficult to predict, but for the period ahead there is the possibility that already proven technologies may not as yet have been fully exploited. Company after company reports that, when confronted with cost increases in a competitive environment that precludes price increases, they are able to offset those costs, seemingly at will, by installing the newer technologies.
Such stories seem odd. If cost improvements were available at will earlier, why weren’t the investments made earlier? This implies suboptimal business behavior, contrary to what universities teach in Economics 101. But in the real world, companies rarely fully maximize profits.