> Also, at some point certain things are just 'good enough', and marginal improvements require a ton of effort but don't make life better. For example, mobile phones - an 8 year old phone would work just fine, if not for forced obsoletion. Yet tons of effort go into very marginal improvements, because if you don't do it, your competitors will.

If this were true, your innovating competitors will lose money. There’s a discussion to be had on bad innovations (such as almost everything related to the so-called “attention economy), but they are a drop in the ocean.