> BigTech has a huge yearly R&D budget. In fact, with two years’ worth of R&D, BigTech could recreate the Apollo program. But they haven’t. Why? Incumbency’s biggest drawbacks are lack of creativity, sloth, internecine politics and waste.
How can we trust economic judgement from someone who uses a project which was only approved due to political grandstanding, as an example of successful corporate direction?
If anything, FB and GOOG will be strengthened by US economic protectionism and assault on China. They just have to continue navigating the political mindefield outside the US markets.
Apple is never going to make a $25 smart phone like you can get in India.
"Consumer" tech hasn't improved at all in my estimation since about 2002. The hardware has gotten better and the software has gotten more bloated, but a modern gadget can do roughly zero things that a gadget from 2002 couldn't.
In 2020 you can buy a second generation iPhone SE for €489, with a 1334x750 screen (at >6x pixel density) and 12MP camera.
These are not roughly equivalent pieces of hardware, and the software they run differs immensely. MMS is not Instagram.
Why? One could argue that advances in AI and Quantum Computing are at least as significant as landing on the moon, and of more value. Big tech investment has pushed the field forward significantly.
Think for example all Alphabet products that came from acquisitions: Youtube, Picasa, Android, DoubleClick, reCAPTCHA, ITA Software, SageTV, Meebo, Waze,DeepMind, Fitbit...
They have also bought something like 50 ad tech companies and 20-30 web search companies.