You don't think you're over thinking this ???
A few years ago Shimano was our goto, unless you were a dentist then you bought a Spesh.
Ok, you knew it would only last 10 minutes between belt failures if you liked to pedal strike or even mentioned the word "moist" next to it. But he'll, it was quiet and had sh1t loads more power (which no one ever spoke about).
Then Bosch came along with the gen4. Huge range increases purely from tricking you to ride harder, some absolutely hideous displays and buttons designed for sea life to operate. But he'll, we forgave that and all wanted bosch and hoped out preferred frame maker would jump ship to Bosch.
Sadly, Bosch were a bit tricky on supply,.so none of the niche makers who were pushing frame development could get one. So you bought a barge with a Bosch or something svelt with a Shitmano, knowing there was a high chance they wouldn't use lube when they tried to shaft you if it failed, mainly because the guy incharge was the son of the boss so had to make the figures look good by fixing them.
Brose continued to develop and eventually incorporated belts which could withstand an impact from a falling sun deflected by another sun during a match of solar pool. Sadly that wasn't enough to stop the chosen few still trashing motors.
This was followed by the wow period. Lots of new brands promise the world.
Nothing arrived.
Then d j I came along and thought, hey, EMTB is a tiny pointless market not with the sh1t and grief, but went for it anyways.
Throwing out a new motor with better power to weight than anyone else. Slimmer batteries (lets not get into the arguments there) nice buttons and on both sides of you loved buttons. Nice screen unlike all the other re used 1989 Nokia's we had. Pro active software development and all sorts of user configurable options to make the bike ride how ever you preferred. Plus, they sold it to anyone. So, suddenly all the interesting niche manufacturers could get a nice motor battery setup for great value for money without getting corporate shafted and a raft of sexy looking bikes arrived which suddenly didn't look like mountain bikes which also had 100 litres of fire suppressant built into the downtube (had it been beer storage, that would have been forgiven).
Did they sit on their arses. No, they continued to innovate.
Yes, the world will move in. It will force competitive innovation rather than stagnation.
Were super lucky, frame designs are generally all pretty capable these days so depending on how picky you are, you have a vast choice of great options now with all the motor choices.
Which means people can actually choose rather than being boxed into the one bike which ticked all the options.
Shimano seem to have been sitting on their arses for years, but the motor development is all in Germany, so hopefully they have something cool lined up. Bosch, who knows, maybe or they'll take a back seat and suck up the commuter market.
Either way, the world is great! We have options. We have sexy bikes which rise great !
