1. The internet. (The government & Tim Berners-Lee.)

2. Penicillin. “Florey believed it would be inappropriate to patent penicillin, but learned his lesson when some of his American collaborators did just that… Florey took no profit for himself.”
— http://time.com/time/magazine/articl...,33700,00.html

3. The computer - “This came from pure scientific thought, and not at all from an economic need for computing. Business and profit-making played no part in it.”
— http://turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/machine.html

4. AC power & modern electricity. (Tesla)
“Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it. All my money has been invested into experiments with which I have made new discoveries enabling mankind to have a little easier life.”
— http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

“Yet Tesla died destitute.”
—http://inventors.about.com/od/tstart...kola_Tesla.htm

5. Phone. “Meucci was recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the US House.” “[He] was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay for the patent application… In 1861 his cottage was auctioned.”
—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci

6. Lightbulb. “Göbel [invented] the first practical bulb… in 1854, a quarter of a century before Edison’s patent.”
—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_G%C3%B6bel

Yes he died pennyless too.

7. Radio. “Tesla is now credited with inventing modern radio as well; since the Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla’s earlier patents.”
—http://inventors.about.com/od/tstart...kola_Tesla.htm

8. Almost everything else - through state funding of science, medicine, & university research.

The point? While we all love for-profit economics, let’s not exaggerate their role either. At best they tend to succeed after government acceleration of new technologies.


from
http://newsrogue.com/list-the-worlds...de-for-profit/

...

Guys, no one is denying that profit motive improves products, we're just asking for a little honesty. Yes profit motive leads to cheaper & better products... but creativity, altruism, & government had a big role too.

Ford didn't invent the car, he invented the cheap car. The Wright brothers didn't invent the first airplane, they invented the first good airplane. (the "three axis-control" method.)

In other words, liberals don't "hate markets" or "worship Marx" - we love our laptops - but please don't exaggerate & over-simplify reality.

Great inventions are developed as a result of genius minds being unable to rest. The truly great minds can envision a better way of doing something and work tirelessly until they achieve their goal. This is the reason that most good inventions are stolen: the real inventors are not trying to make money so they do not obtain a patent.

As the old saying goes, "Necessity is the mother of invention" For example, Radar was developed by the military for an edge in the air. Same with sonar, GPS, kevlar etc.

I think profit has very little to do with the best inventions, except for the less influential ones like "oxy-clean" and "the clapper" and stuff like that.

__________________
"Masters of War" by Bob Dylan
"When a man assumes public trust, he should consider himself as public property"
-Thomas Jefferson
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-Albert Einstein
"One man with courage is a majority"
-Thomas Jefferson

I recommend reading Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
He comes to the conclusion that "Necessity is the mother of invention" is bunk by broad historical analysis.
In truth "Invention is the mother of necessity."

The larger our cultural/technological base and the number of minds at work, the greater the number of inventions. Usually the existing technology is around before the need arises (whether through public need or market demand).

The examples given are exceptions to the rule.
That's not to say that they don't make an excellent point. Sometimes we do put minds to work best by concentrating on a goal as a society. But I think it's mostly limited to public goods. But I guess the internet is an example of how an intended public good can become a lucrative private good...
Interesting because that's the opposite of how things usually go.

I suppose the lesson is that there is no golden rule for how innovation comes about.

__________________
"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Maybe these items weren't invented for profit, but the profit motive is what made them available to the people who needed them!!!

That is true. But it does imply that profit is better for disbursing certain types of goods than for leading to its creation.
After all it's less expensive and risky to create yet another dumb cell phone device than to create the next step in infrastructure... and to the average firm far more likely to produce profit.

__________________
"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Well some companies have started to try to introduce a random element into R&D. "Permitted bootlegging"** gives employees the freedom to pursue anything they want during company time. 3M is a good example in that they give employees ~10% of their time to develop anything they want, regardless of future profit. They ended up patenting Post-It Notes from a project a employee made during his free time, which probably made them a ton of money.

Although you can't compare a post-it note to the freaking internet, the possibility of creating something really innovative is still there. At least some corporations realize that free creative thinking not geared towards a quick buck can be a great thing.

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootlegging_%28business%29

I'd say Linux is another good example... but it's not really very successful compared to its competitors.

The keyboard for which you take your name is a good example of how ideas sometimes stagnate. The purpose of the QWERTY keyboard was to slow down typists back in the days when they jammed easy.

Now the main reason we have them is because we're used to them and the whole industry around creating and teaching how to use them has grown comfortable with the purposely inefficient model.

__________________
"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

.....................challenge EVERYTHING....................

Funny, isn't it. Well that's tradition for ya