Comment by fennecfoxy

I thought I'd follow up by pointing out that capitalism (optimisation for profits) often shuns developing new technology.

There are hundreds of thousands of similar stories but the origin of the blue LED, something responsible for a large number of child technologies, came from an engineer who basically disobeyed his boss, worked himself down to the bone on the problem including spending many of his own hours.

And when he finally did it, he got absolutely shafted; none of those huge profits for him, barely a thank you.

Capitalism barely provides. It's too concerned with optimising for profit. Any technologies developed are usually an accident/the product of hard work that capitalism has not fully paid for. Research grants are the only true way to do it.

And if capitalism hadn't created a corrupt system where those who are wealthiest barely pay in on tax, then we wouldn't need them in the first place. People could crowd source developing new technologies because they'd actually be getting their fair share, or the government can do it through grant allocation.