https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/ Ubuntu 18.04 will ship with GNOME desktop, abandoning Unity shell and "convergence" vision. No mention of Mir. This is pretty huge news, if long due. It's still baffling to me that they struck off on their own with Mir rather than embracing Wayland, which is now shipping as default in many distros.
A possible takeaway from this is that desktop UI is simply no longer area where you can stand out / make money by innovating in. I hope groups like Elementary keep trying though, as there are still many incremental improvements that potentially benefit billions of users.
I do think that convergence in some form is still the future of computing. CPU-wise most peoples' phones are now powerful enough to do everything they'd want to do on a desktop.
@jplebreton i don't think it's so much no room for innovation as it is innovation for innovation's sake rather than toward some actual desirable end is just a horrible idea for anything meant to be used by anyone other than the experimenter. there was a profound lack of consideration for the people who would be affected.