[justinsteele]

To further the analogy.. as soon as the fruit on the low hanging branches becomes bad enough to justify the additional effort of climbing the tree for the better fruit, people will do it.

Your argument makes it sound like you're saying no hard problems are being worked on currently, which is simply not true.

[TeMPOraL]

To continue the analogy even further - ... not if people instead invent ways to paint the crappy fruits so that customer buys them anyways. Happens all the time in every sector. As industries mature, products get crappier.