Please do not confuse “getting input from industry” with “getting input from lobbyists”. Getting unbiased, balanced input from a large section of industry is important, but if you think you (assuming you are a politician) can do that by simply listen to the lobbyists who show up at your door then you are not doing your job. Company lobbyists, however, know that this is what you will do, and they will tell you things which will give them advantages over their competitors, not what will benefit the industry as a whole.

It is a huge mistake to think that individual companies want things to be better for their field or industry as a whole. They don’t; whatever ups or downs the industry suffers will be borne equally by all, and is therefore irrelevant to the real goal of companies: to get an edge over the competition. Companies will gladly make things worse for everyone in their field if it means they will get a larger share of it. Politicians, apparently, do not know this, or do not have enough incentive to realize this, so politicians choose to listen to the lobbyists and choose to believe that they are thereby listening to the industry.