I don't think you're understanding my point. Hopping on the bandwagon is explicitly not "maximizing your foothold while minimizing your downside," nor is it early-stage almost by definition. An early stage technology with an uncertain future cannot have a bandwagon.

I think the logical thing to do is to invest a minor amount of time/money across a broad spectrum of new promising tech. If you had been aware of and bought $500 of Bitcoin in 2010, you'd be a billionaire today. The early people involved with NFTs also did very well.

The Flash example is specifically the opposite of my point. Flash was a lucrative skill for a period of time, but at a certain point it became very clear that it didn't have a future.