Reef
Hero
Has it really though? Even though 5e was the new thing, lots of gamers stayed with 3e, or 4e, or some version of OSR. Lots of us did move to 5e, but that's because many of us do feel it was better. Not because it was new. If new was all that mattered, each edition would have won over the previous. And when One comes out, we'll look at it, of course. But there's no guarantee we just won't keep running from our 2014 books, newness or not. But maybe that make me and my group outliers? Or just old...heh.The problem is, the culture has shifted away from mixing similar games into everyone playing the new thing, because that's where the big companies think the money is. There will always be homebrewers and DIY gamers, but the industry is I think moving towards something easier to monetize for a given company, as opposed to the industry as a whole.
And I'm not sure the move to monetize the game is any different now. I'm sure TSR would have been all over it the same way if they had the option.