Comment by hammock
It’s an interesting question. After all we were using electricity, batteries, electric motors, radios and telegraphs long before we ever discovered electrons and photons.
But discovering the electron was necessary for us to develop vacuum tubes. And developing quantum mechanics was necessary for developing transistors.
Think about the relative impact of the telegraph vs the vacuum tube.
When we do eventually find something to do with the W and Z bosons, it’s likely to look more like a transistor-level tech than an immediately practical tool like a lightbulb. But the second-order effects from whatever that new tech turns out to be, have the potential to be world-shattering.
Quantum Mechanics, protons, electrons... That's the theory of everyday matter. You don't need very special situations to see their effects. Understanding the underlying equations enabled us to do more with what we already have.
High energy stuff only exists unstably for fractions of seconds. I find the idea that any of Standard Model physics, nevermind beyond standard model physics, could lead to a technological advance like the transistor extremely unconvincing.
Technological advance and scientific advance sometimes align. But there is no law that the former by necessity follows from the former. The expectation that they do is an extrapolation from a very brief period of human history.