alt Hacker NewsIndeed, people didn't invent the telephone, television, or typewriter because they thought "wow this would be a great payout for the next 20-80 years for me and my subsequent heirs, let me invent something useful", they did it because they needed a telephone, television, or typewriter, and one didn't exist yet.
Unless this is sarcasm, you base these claim on what exactly? Inventors in the late 1800s were often notoriously litigious and highly motivated by the fact that they could profit from their inventions through patents.
The alternative option would have meant that individuals would have had to spend significant amounts of time and resources to "invent" new products, and the only ones to profit would be the companies that had the capacity to manufacture them (while keeping all of the profits for themselves). Does that seem like an environment that's highly conducive to innovation?
> they did it because they needed a telephone,
There is a pretty extensive section named "The race to the patent office" on Graham Bell's Wikipedia page.
Do you think Watt would have successful at building his steam engine had there been no patents that allowed him to attract investors? Or he would have just spent all of his live working as an engineer or a surveyor because he couldn't have afford the significant capital required to develop the engine?