points by adrian_b 2 days ago | 0 comments
This appears to have been true for the last few decades, but not before.
From the first World War up to around 1980, a very large number of the most important technological innovations have been made in the research laboratories of a few giant companies, like ATT, IBM, General Electric, Westinghouse Electric.
For some reason, since around 1980 almost all big companies have focused much more on the financial results of the next quarter than on long-term research, so much less innovations were done in them (with a few exceptions, IBM has still produced a few very important innovations until around 2000, but those innovations were less important for IBM products, their impact was due to being licensed to others).
Good point. What I described is not some law of nature, but a function of the current long-term fad of American ultracapitalism.
Happily, the signs are that this is all falling apart in an irreversible way. Whatever rises from the ashes might resemble a civilization again, if we're lucky.