this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
500 points (98.8% liked)
Greentext
8236 readers
1040 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I find it interesting that you draw the line at software, as if it doesn’t require time and money to create software solutions.
If it matters, I’m of the opinion that patents shouldn’t exist period. Capitalism loves to brag about encouraging competition and how much it benefits consumers, when in reality patents are super anticompetitive. An idea is one thing, executing the idea well is another. If I “take” your idea and execute it better than you, there shouldn’t be legislation stopping me
THANK YOU. Exactly. Competition is supposed to decide who wins, not the state. If your invention is genuinely great, you should dominate because you innovate faster, manufacture better, support customers better, reduce costs better, and improve continuously, not because the government threatens competitors for 20 years.
Imagine you are an inventor and come up with a brilliant new thing, and start a business to sell it. You even bring in people to help manufacture and make them a co-op. Doing everything ethically right. Selling a quality product that people want.
Then a multinational conglomerate sees it is selling well and they use their immense resources to scale up production, produce and sell it for half the price you can.
You and your co-op go out of business and megacorps shareholders pocket even more dividends.
Thats why patents should exist in a capitalist hellscape.
That argument proves the problem is scale and market power, not lack of patents.
Giving everyone a legal weapon sounds fair in theory, but in practice the biggest companies have the best lawyers, the biggest patent portfolios, and the most money to litigate. Patents often become a moat for incumbents, not a shield for small inventors.
A pro-market answer would be: reduce barriers to entry, punish fraud, enforce contracts, maybe protect trade secrets narrowly, but don’t ban competitors from building better versions.