• conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    If they couldn’t protect trade secrets, they couldn’t afford the literal billions of dollars of research they do to make that progress.

      • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        https://www.samsung.com/global/business/networks/insights/blog/persistence-pays-off-for-samsung-networks-in-becoming-a-major-5g-radio-access-network-vendor/

        I’m not willing to dig too deep, but here’s a Samsung.com link saying it was 16 billion in 2018 and trending up. I’m not sure if building fabs goes into that bucket or a different one, and that’s a budget copycats also need, but the amount of investment in research is absolutely enough that not being able to benefit from it before being copied would make it much more difficult to do.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Most important research is done by universities and on public funding. Capitalist structure isn’t very good at providing incentives for fundamental research. The main reason is that companies exist to make profit, and that means pursuing research that can be commercialized in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, a lot of fundamental research doesn’t have any clear immediate application. However, this is the kind of research that results in serious technological breakthroughs as opposed to small incremental gains.

    • fishos@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      If the knowledge was out there, universities could be advancing the next levels instead of only billion dollar companies. Trapping the knowledge within only a handful of companies only helps those companies.

      • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        The knowledge wouldn’t be out there. It wouldn’t exist because the companies paying for the work would be bankrupt.

        • fishos@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          If only there were these institutions of learning where people researched things. Something like a “University”…

          This is science, not corporate trade secrets.

          • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            The economics of academic research is actually something to complain about. That research is paid for in large part with public funding, then privatized and paywalled.

            There is no theoretical world where academic research could get paid for at anywhere near the rate of the private sector. If trade secrets didn’t exist, we would be decades slower in technology at a generous best case.

            Your opinion doesn’t have even the tiniest sliver of validity underlying it.

            • GeneralVincent@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              No dog in this fight, but

              There is no theoretical world where academic research could get paid for at anywhere near the rate of the private sector

              A world where we theoretically care more about the academic advancement of humans than the money in our pocket. Money isn’t sentient, going wherever it thinks it should go. Humans give it to other humans in exchange for things.

              Not saying it’s very realistic in our world, but saying it’s not even theoretically possible seems pretty silly and defeatist tbh.

              • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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                11 months ago

                What you’re describing is no longer a human civilization filled with humans. Free will is a core to what makes people people, and that means people being permitted to clash, disagree, and compete.

                It’s not defeatist in any way. His weird fantasy world where work and investment aren’t rewarded sounds like a miserable hell hole.

            • fishos@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Yes, cus science only advanced when done by corporations. Governments never funded and developed new science ever. Nope not ever. Astronomy and nuclear tech would like a word btw.

              • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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                11 months ago

                The scale of what government is capable of compared to government plus the private sector are not remotely comparable.

                It is a statement of fact that if private companies were not entitled to the fruits of their research it’s literally impossible anywhere near as much research would be done, and literally impossible that output of that research would be further along.