> why US industrial policy (IP;) is optimized for pharma-shaped industry, so that's what you get? Apple is investing years of nifty R&D to create an extremely

> why US industrial policy (IP;) is optimized for pharma-shaped industry, so that's what you get? Apple is investing years of nifty R&D to create an extremely difficult mass consumer market HUD, and far easier "niche" markets will be addressed afterwards, not before. Because patents. Maybe sufficiently long-term that's a win. Maybe not. Absent mandatory FRAND licensing, patents don't play well with many-player small-market exploratory industrialization/commercialization. Pre-boom VR and large touch surfaces used the DIY dodge, "we're selling a kit, not a thing, so violations are on you, and of course you can't sell what you build". So you might then have bought a kit for a crufty coffee table surface, and adapted code from a we-cant-be-commercial small and scattered but active FOSS ecosystem. It all rather crimps market gestation. My understanding is the current trade war kicked off because pharma insisted on a "everything pharma wants, now" US position, and China considered that an intolerable new 'unequal treaty' (opium wars context). Importation barriers don't help. And people trading incremental collective progress for moats and unicorn dreams. And just small-population "why was X never done?". As you accumulate market inefficiencies, eventually it all just doesn't fly? But mostly patents it seems to me.