[hourago]

> The problem is that cost and risk of development and trials is too large for the current rewards,

This kind of invesment has been traditionally done by governments. But with a reduction of taxation governments do not have animore money to do this. And for private companies it makes more sense to spend that kind of money in advertisment than in developing new products.

> ensuring good prices or bounties for successful development would likely create a plethora of antimicrobials in a quite short time frame.

If one woman has a child in 9 months. How many months takes to 9 women? More money may accelerate development, but there is a limit on how much faster one can go. Give a big enough reward and you will find more corporations cheating and lobbyng to get that money without delivering any actual antimicrobials.

Public research institutions seem a very good middle ground. Give pasionate scientist funding and they will come with solutions. Give passionate CEOs money and you get the next big scam.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> Give passionate CEOs money and you get the next big scam.

This has been the case for decades, yet we still seem to have not learned this.

This is my observation, from having seen this happen in a couple of industries, and hearing of it happening in others.

There seems to be a "sweet spot," in new money-making stuff, where real value is produced, rewards are reaped, and scamming is low.

The industry starts off with small-scale passion projects, and relatively low rewards. Virtually no scamming, but also modest financial gains, as the passion-players start to establish the infrastructure.

Then it starts to "catch on," and a more professional approach is applied. The industry starts to scale, and the first folks on the upswing start to make some good money.

Then, after that, the scale goes up exponentially, the quality of the work nosedives, the rewards pile up, and the scamming becomes more prevalent. Many of the originators fall down, because they can't adapt to the new darwinian order.

Eventually, the whole thing becomes so corrupted, that it collapses under its own weight.

Rinse and repeat.

[toofy]

i think you’re hitting the nail on the head emphasizing passion.

so often people entirely disregard passion for the work when theorizing that no one would be a ceo for less than $40million.

i haven’t ever seen studies done surrounding the issue, but i’d bet far more innovation comes from people doing something because they’re passionate than it does from monetary reward.

there’s a tipping point somewhere when innovation takes a backseat to greed.

often greed directly leads to a willingness to destroy a things essence or just chip away at the thing completely ignoring the passion which brought it about in the first place.

edit: forgive me if this seems a bit heavy handed—just watched Its a Wonderful Life with the family for Christmas so maybe i’m feeling a bit jaded towards greed.

[epicureanideal]

> But with a reduction of taxation

I’m pretty sure government tax revenue is still at or near all time highs. As the population grows there’s more and more taxes to spend for this purpose. It’s just a matter of priorities.

[taeric]

This feels like a misdirection, though. Revenue may be high, but the same forces that drive this being a trivial statement also mean that expenses are at an all time high.

[wnevets]

> As the population grows there’s more and more taxes to spend for this purpose.

but so does the cost to service that growing population.

[epicureanideal]

Basic research scales in a way that treating specific individuals doesn’t. Treating specific individuals can be handled by insurance.

[wnevets]

Any increase in general tax revenue generated by an increase in population is going to used for the new population. For example NASA's budget didn't increase just because of an increase in population

[nine_k]

> big scam

If you have reasonably honest people who are not starting from scratch, and honest trials, you likely are going to get a real thing. Case in point: mRNA vaccines against COVID.