It's my impression that Germany and Japan are leaders in producing the capital equipment needed to set up manufacturing, although the US is fairly capable in so

It's my impression that Germany and Japan are leaders in producing the capital equipment needed to set up manufacturing, although the US is fairly capable in some areas. I think that China imports a lot of equipment from them and then integrates it into factory systems. You 5 statements are probably right with some qualification. For example, software mass production is basically free (actually just low cost) for apps distributed via the app stores. However, if you are selling software as a service at scale, setting up a cloud service with five 9s availability is complex and expensive.