Inference techniques either move a deployment along the latency–throughput frontier or push the entire frontier out, creating more efficiency to allocate.
The point is to classify them into two kinds. The kind that shifts the frontier is more powerful, since improves capabilities without incurring tradeoffs.
I also wrote this as somewhat of a defense of the techniques that don't move the frontier -- there is a lot of value in being able to pick a point on the curve.