Very interesting thought... It does seem like mob mentality makes it so that the flashiest inventions and people get the lion's share of the attention. We see this in the cryptocurrency space - it's why young companies with no product are able to raise millions of dollars.

While most people are building products, the real influencers are building platforms. Paper is a platform on which knowledge can be spread. The Haber process is a platform to support much larger amounts of human life. Even Steemit is a platform - one that, in theory at least, incentivizes the best kind of content creation and (even better) collaboration.

Excellent post here, thanks @mountainwashere