Comment by Jach

Speaking just on timelines (rather than actual underlying innovations or improvements), 802.11 was in 1997, next in 1999, G in 2003, then a 6 year gap to N in 2009, 4 year gap to AC in 2013, 8 year gap to wifi 6 in 2021, wifi 7 in 2024 (though apparently buyer beware), and wifi 8 expected (according to the article) in 2028. Doesn't seem too rapid? The 8 year gap is the weird one out.

I think part of it is that if there isn't a regular and practiced process for bumping standards, then gaps between revisions can grow quite large and stagnation can set in, and if there are any significant improvements it'll take longer for them to come to fruition than if there were regular revisions that are only modest most of the time. Looking at a few other things that come to mind: USB had an 8 year gap between 2 and 3 as well, PCIe had a 7 year gap between 3 and 4 (albeit while they only had a 3 year gap between the specification for 5 to 6, it still took 3 more years (2025) for the first pcie6 devices, and I still can't buy a consumer-level pcie6 motherboard, it's a separate mess), C++ had an 8 year gap between C++03 and C++11, Java had a 5 year gap between 6 and 7 (and another 3 years after 7 to get to Java 8); all of these things now have more rapid cycles.