[randyrand]

The usual reason is that then there is an incentive to not spend your own money on research and to just wait for someone else to do it for you.

Then we just get stuck in a waiting game.

[coldtea]

Well, it worked well well all research was open back in the Newton, Leibniz, Kelvin, Maxwell, etc times. I don't see why it can't work now.

Besides, those that actually do the research also get other benefits, like having people already familiar at a high level with it, getting to derive and manufacture/patent etc stuff based on the research sooner, etc.