I was saying for years that OSM is worth supporting and investing in, and it will catch up one day if we continue to support it despite its limitations.

Turns out it WOULD catch up one day, but I was wrong when it comes to the reasoning: it caught up because the cost of producing a new set of up-to-date proprietary maps is too high, and it's more cost-effective for corporations that need that dataset to contribute to OSM as a commons.

I wonder if a similar process will be (or is being) seen in other domains.