"it sounds like a perfectly functioning competitive market." This "anthropic principle" for technology cuts both ways. The current market was made with curren

"it sounds like a perfectly functioning competitive market." This "anthropic principle" for technology cuts both ways. The current market was made with current patent/trade dress law where people who copy too close are sometimes punished. You can't on the one side extoll it's wonders and on the other side say let's toss this whole side of it out and assume we'd see the same capital investments in the counterfactual.