[D] Following latest trends / reading latest papers worth the time

For all in non-academic roles that follow latest papers on DS/ML: Care to share you conclusion - was it worth investing your time, and did you manage to use those advancements at work?

Also, any caveat emptors? I.e. any cases where you jumped on the new bandwagon as paper suggested and got burned?

Thanks for your input.

machinelearning reading time trends