Kindof? I guess that’s a corollary. What I’m saying is that despite being objectively larger and more successful companies, they don’t have nearly the innovation we got from the collaborative efforts of US (i.e. DARPA) and Bell’s research.

It demonstrated that looking out on a very long timeline…decades, if not longer…and investing on projects that won’t show any returns for just as long…if ever…but it can reap massive rewards for everyone.

But…capitalism…pure capitalism…only allows that through monopolies. Which of course is their own can of worms.

Regulated capitalism is just as bad, if not even worse, because there is no incentive for companies to work together on a long enough timeline for it to matter. It results in everything being measured on a quarterly/yearly scale and expecting immediate results, while also disincentivizing publishing or any other dissemination of knowledge

Hence it falls on the government to bankroll these things through grants.