To make the example more up-to-date, the same problem exists with incentives to deliver faster (or real-time) electronic transfers at the retail level. Faster payments can only happen if the system as a whole is set up for it, and then only if a critical mass of the individual participants are set up to provide timely access.
But putting this in place will obviously involve some cost, with little or no proprietary benefit to the investor, particularly where it may cannibalise other potentially profitable product lines. This problem would exist even if all the payments industry participants faced identical incentives. Without an effective coordinating mechanism, industry will tend to under-invest in this kind of innovation.