Well you don't even need to look just at commercially available products - just look at the FOSS landscape for what gets produced when there is no financial inc

Well you don't even need to look just at commercially available products - just look at the FOSS landscape for what gets produced when there is no financial incentive or IP law to protect the material - certainly we would be in a much different place technology wise if we didn't have FOSS as the backbone for a grand majority of technology that exist on the market today, and all of that FOSS was created without the financial incentive or the IP law to protect it. The existing IP structure can be a useful tool and motivator for people, but it also adds in an extra requirement to all software it touches, whether the designers and coders are conscious of it or not - suddenly, there is a requirement that it make profit on top of what it actually is supposed to do. There's nothing wrong with making money - I'm not here to make a Stallmanistic rant about F/OSS. But this type of structure isn't necessary for great leaps in technology. In the past it was useful because that's how access to the development funds were locked up - you had to play under someone else's banner and their rules to bring you idea to the forefront. Software was different because you didn't need a factory to produce it, and while you still need the factory, you don't need any one particular factory anymore to do the production. Innovation can and does happen just fine without patent laws or financial incentive.