Becuse they are a monopolist and we can require certain things from monopolists.
Similarly, Bell Labs was kind of required to release transistor for anyone to license - it was a part of social contract that they were allowed to maintain their monopoly in exchange for releasing certain parts of technology.
Alternatively, they could be split up and their indexing division made an independent company selling to anyone on a free market.
I tend to agree - businesses should give back. But they can also keep some secrets.
R&D has steep cost. Publishing it all gives your competitors an advantage.
It has steep costs, but with monopolists they have other ways of extracting value from the inventions.
Awesome book about the history if Bell Labs - virtually all semiconductor tech we use today was created there (transistors, ics, solar, lasers, fiber optics, telecom satellites…), and they had to license it to be allowed to maintain their monopoly status.
https://www.amazon.pl/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation...
Thanks for the recommendation, I do see your points. We should be treating monopolies differently.
Thanks :)
Another cool book about back and forth between monopolies and decentralisation in our space: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information-Empire...
It also has an audiobook.