I always say this whenever anyone asks about whether something is "just hype". One day I will write a blog post on it. Long story short: every piece of new tech is "just hype" until the surrounding ecosystem is built for it. Trains are just hype until you cover the country in railway lines. Telephony is just hype until everyone has a telephone. Email is just hype until everyone has a personal computer (and a reason to sit in front of it every day).

Typically, in these kinds of developments there are two key things that need to appear at the same time: 1. Ubiquitous hardware, so e.g. everyone buys a car, or a TV, or a toaster. 2. An "interface" (whether that's a protocol or a UI or an API or a design standard) which is hyper low cognitive load for the user e.g. the flush button on a toilet is probably the best example I've ever seen, but the same can be said for the accelerator + brake + steering wheel combo, or indeed in digital/online it's CSV for me, and you can also say the same about HTTP like this article does.

Obviously these two factors feed into each other in a kind of feedback loop. That is basically what the role of "hype" is, to catalyse that loop.