I'd say capitalism is partly responsible, but not completely - IT is not that competitive yet.
I agree with your conclusion; I think it's about deciding not capturing all the value you create, i.e. not being too greedy. Some companies do make this choice, and whole world benefits.
I'm not talking solely about IT. I'm talking about the global ecosystem of capitalism.
There also effects like people who don't dream big because what's more important is ensuring that they can pay the bills; capitalism is also responsible for this, and it has nothing to do with IT.
> I think it's about deciding not capturing all the value you create, i.e. not being too greedy. Some companies do make this choice, and whole world benefits.
The whole world benefits at a cost to the company itself, though. It's not surefire either way, but the company is more likely to survive if it is selfish than if it plays charitably.
Is your company's failure worth the potential benefit to the world? It's easy to say yes from an armchair. It's a lot harder to say yes when the market report is explaining how your competitors are taking advantage of the value you've created to shut you out of the market. Should you still say yes? Probably. Become a Netscape. Fight a losing war against Microsoft and get bought by AOL to become a brand name to fleece the ignorant.
I agree with you strongly. I grew to hate the ecosystem of capitalism for the very reasons you stated.
> The whole world benefits at a cost to the company itself, though. It's not surefire either way, but the company is more likely to survive if it is selfish than if it plays charitably.
Sometimes it's a matter of choosing a business model. There are companies (Basho comes to mind) that do serious open-source work and take money for consulting/support. But I'd hazard a guess such models are only possible because IT is not competitive enough. As competition in any field gets more intense everything tends to degenerate, as those unwilling to sacrifice some value in exchange for profit get outcompeted by those who do. Governments are there to offset some of those problems with regulations, but this has a whole other set of issues.
I agree with your conclusion; I think it's about deciding not capturing all the value you create, i.e. not being too greedy. Some companies do make this choice, and whole world benefits.