I find notions of 'saving' things, particularly industries, to be disingenuous. If the NES flopped, or never existed, it's not like the console gaming industry

I find notions of 'saving' things, particularly industries, to be disingenuous. If the NES flopped, or never existed, it's not like the console gaming industry would not exist. There is clearly a market for it and so we would simply have different names to recall as the 'saviors' of the industry. This is also why companies failing is not a bad thing, nor something that should aim to be avoided. For instance with our massive automotive bailout. If these companies went out of business it might have been a rocky few years, but clearly there is a demand for vehicles and this would have created a vacuum enabling new companies, perhaps with more innovative ideas, to take their place. Instead we propped up a failing industry for no apparent gain. It could have even been detrimental in the longrun. Not all automobile companies were failing -- Hyundai-Kia were booming for instance. And had we let the dinosaurs go extinct it's entirely possible that today most cars being sold would have been much more fuel efficient. Instead, as soon as gas prices dropped we ran right back to giant gas guzzlers. Ford, for instance, even recently announced they've decided to stop making all passenger cars... except the Mustang. So what happens the next time gas prices spike? Deciding to save the company has predictably incentivized myopic behavior.