i hear a lot of founders say "in a gold rush, build shovels!". i don't think this analogy works in crypto.

gold is gold, there's nothing to innovate with it. on the other hand, crypto social still has miles and miles of space to innovate.

by the time you've built shovels for the gold, people will have realized the gold actually cures cancer, or can be used for space travel, or can be used for extremely novel online content experiences powered by livestreams and tokens.

As you said ,there are always areas to innovate 
The analogy is both right and wrong depending on perspective