"Here is the ideal: we pay people for the time/effort/resources to create" This could only work for ideas that are obvious. For instance, it's obvious that a m

"Here is the ideal: we pay people for the time/effort/resources to create" This could only work for ideas that are obvious. For instance, it's obvious that a more efficient solar cell would be great, so we could create a prize for that. But could the public have pre-funded the telephone? No, because they hadn't thought of it. The most notable inventions are the ones that nobody saw coming, and hence, couldn't have commissioned.