Yes modern fabs are almost a miracle, but there's a large market for compute aka microchips that can't be made any other way, and of course flight has some uniq

Yes modern fabs are almost a miracle, but there's a large market for compute aka microchips that can't be made any other way, and of course flight has some unique benefits. In contrast there are myriad other ways of making electricity that will be much cheaper than fusion ever will. IMHO. I get what you're saying, never say never, etc, and fusion research is still worthwhile, as research, but there is just no economic case to spend billions to develop these current technologies for mainstream power generation. If there's some major breakthrough in LENR, or muon-catalysed reactions, or whatever, that might be different. Many technologies are only enabled as spin-offs from other tech, and there are plenty of examples of technologies that seem possible/plausible etc, but get cut off in development when it's clear the economics can't work or the unique capabilities are not compelling enough.