S curve growth of technology

Jason in this blog post, talks about a "natural S curve" for analyzing progress and quotes:

Every technology, defined narrowly enough, goes through an S-curve: it starts out small, picks up steam, hits a hockey-stick inflection point, grows exponentially—and then starts to near saturation, slows down, levels off, plateaus.

And regarding how breakthroughs open the flood gates to new invention, he says:

... But when some breakthrough insight creates an entirely new field, it opens an entire new orchard of low-hanging fruit to pick.

I think this is an interesting way to think about progress and would be great to quantify this more rigorously.