Comment by mswphd

this is broadly true. I've heard some criticisms of industrial QC research along these lines, namely that it runs into the issue that its entire TAM ends up being some combination of

1. defense contracting, which can definitely be lucrative, but (hopefully) will dry up quickly after the PQ transition (and especially will if we successfully transition before QCs are advanced enough, which is the goal), and

2. theft, with things like e.g. stealing bitcoins or whatever.

The second is plausibly a large market. It may be difficult to put it on a quarterly report though. So the economic basis industrial QC research may not end up panning out.