That seems a little unfair to me. In many cases an original idea, regardless of ability to execute, is priceless.
I agree that execution is everything in terms of winning, though.
I agree that execution is everything in terms of winning, though.
This is why patents are harmful imo (without even getting into patent trolls), all they do is restrict the commercialization to the one who was the fastest gun in the west at the patent office and hold back society from developing the technology further because the patentee has no incentive to improve the idea while they enjoy a two decade state sanctioned monopoly.
For example, new pharmaceuticals (of which there are very few being discovered) take over 10 years of R&D and cost multiple billions of dollars to whittle down ~10,000 candidates into a single government approved drug.
But once that single drug has been identified from the haystack of failing options, and rigorously tested, and trialed in humans for years, recreating that molecule is quite trivial. The actual production is very cheap compared to the fact it took thousands of people billions of dollars over 10+ years to get there.
This is just one example of how ideas can be very expensive to develop, but very cheap to copy.
This sort of live saving research is the best contender for R&D by government grants, if it's a worthy cause it can be supported for a long time (like fusion is being), and when the solution is found it can be immediately shared and sold at cost for the benefit of everyone, not hoarded by one company and sold at a ridiculous price to people that are forced to buy it or die.
In terms of novel drugs introduced per year (not just repackaging existing drugs), the EU as a bloc is consistently behind the US. So, their scientific spending doesn't seem to be paying off in pharmaceuticals.
As an aside, there are plenty of inventions that were developed or rediscovered long after they were technologically feasible. The whole Middle Ages occurred because we forgot how to do things they knew how to do in ancient times and never documented, like how to use concrete. Other things were just never thought of until much later, like the analog phonograph could have been created in ancient times but no one tried running a pin over a grooved surface.
A player piano is a better example.
Antiquity probably had many inventions thta died out when the local village did. Life was expensive, and capital hard to come by. If a patron wasn't interested and aware, development stalls.
It’s definitely possible to make a recording without electricity, it just requires steady source of rotation for engraving, so maybe a spring or motor was a necessary precursor to make it useful.
So there may some some first mover advantage in being lucky enough to be (among) the first to have an idea, but first mover itself is of debatable advantage.
Help me see why you think an original idea can be priceless?
Some seem so obvious that it seems likely that many people dreamt of them at the same time. Hard to tell in this case.
Several other things really are valuable, one thing that surprises people is that Advertising is actually valuable, if nobody knows you made this thing/ service/ whatever then they can't benefit from it. Now obviously there's a big gap between "Have you heard about bicycles? I was dubious at first but it was surprisingly easy to learn how to use it" and the pop-up insisting that maybe you've got Restless Leg Syndrome and should ask your doctor - but fundamentally advertising delivers some value for our society.
I think your line of thinking discounts how absolutely novel and groundbreaking even the idea was. It's an example of someone seeing something about reality that basically the rest of the population of the world managed to miss. I think that's pretty special - even if there was no realistic plan to implement the idea.
If you're trying to create a commercial device, the idea is such tiny part of what it takes to deliver a successful product that it is close to worthless on its own.
But the context here is science fiction, where good ideas are a major part of it. (The other major parts are good characters and storytelling, but it's the ideas that distinguish science fiction from other kinds of fiction.)
So give the guy his due.
He looked ahead and tried to envision where technology was going, and, in this case anyway, pretty much nailed it 50 years out.