Consider the adage with regard to business: evolve or die.
Treading water is actually going backwards. Think of companies which were once household names which sat still on their stack. By failing to continue innovating, they fell behind their competitors, didn't even see the disrupters, and did not jump onto the emerging technology trends (e.g. Blockbuster, Blackberry, Kodak, etc).
Keeping up to date with technology today means survival tomorrow.