Throughout the world it is often the case that early adopters of a technology build so much infrastructure around it that their cost of switching becomes much higher.
Another case in point: The US just can't move away from credit cards and slow freight trains and cars, all due to infrastructure issues, while countries that have been historically behind have been able to jump ahead to mobile payments and high speed rail.
Arguably, freight trains in North America are more advanced than Europe. They’ve had automatic couplers for a long time, they have a huge loading gauge allowing double stack freight, they have trains that can be miles long (compared to Europe which is working on a sub-network allowing 700m).
The big difference is really the infrastructure and the ownership structure. Since the infrastructure is private and being competed on, it’s not shared across operators. It’s not a public utility and consequently in a sort of optimal state of minimal spending.
Anyway, the story is much more complicated than „early adopters“.
Another case in point: The US just can't move away from credit cards and slow freight trains and cars, all due to infrastructure issues, while countries that have been historically behind have been able to jump ahead to mobile payments and high speed rail.