Late ninenties Internet boom ballooned into a massive bubble before bursting soon after the break of the millenium. The foresight of those early internet companies was nearly limitless and nobody wanted to miss out the opportunity. Eventually every bubble must burst.
We had our own "investment in air" here in Finland a little bit before the global burst. In 2000 our national telecommunications company bet on growing mobile business. Not satisfied with our own pesky national markets the German market was seen as an opportunity we couldn't afford to miss. The rights to the 3g network in Germany was auctioned for 4,3 billion Euros and we won, unfortunately. As with much of the dot-com graze the potential was there, but the technology just wasn't ready yet. With delays there was no revenue to follow up those investments. Eventually the company had to be sold to a Swedish competitor. Being a national company funded by tax money we essentially donated 1000 euros each for some quality German air.
A quick look at today's markets looks a lot like those days. There is a car maker bigger by market capitalization than the ten biggest traditional car makers combined, even though their sales is just a rounding error compared to those old makers. Actually, there are not one but three new car companies in the list of top ten manufacturers by market cap while the market share of electric cars in year 2020 was around 3%. Sure, it's growing fast, but I doubt the growth will catch the valuation of these companies. Not even if all the traditional makers would just decide to gibe up the race completely. No matter how low they get their cars air coefficiency there is still too much air in their stock price.