I believe that Moore’s Law remained true for a long time, not because it was inevitable, but because an exemplary company worked very hard and effectively to make it true.
(p. 159) In brief, Moore’s Law predicts that computing chips will shrink by half in size and cost every 18 to 24 months. For the past 50 years it has been astoundingly correct.
It has been steady and true, but does Moore’s Law reveal an imperative in the technium? In other words is Moore’s Law in some way inevitable? The answer is pivotal for civilization for several reasons. First, Moore’s Law represents the acceleration in computer technology, which is accelerating everything else. Faster jet engines don’t lead to higher corn yields, nor do better lasers lead to faster drug discoveries, but faster computer chips lead to all of these. These days all technology follows computer technology. Second, finding inevitability in one key area of technology suggests invariance and directionality may be found in the
rest of the technium.
Source:
Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking Adult, 2010.