> Most other products require a lot of high paid labor to produce, think of a video game studio for example, also without any guarantee it won't flop, and it certainly takes longer to develop than to do a clinical trial.

You have to try really hard to make a video game no-one wants[0]. You might not recoup all your investment, but you won't sell zero copies. A drug can have all that money poured in, and nothing come of it.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/09/two-weeks-after-launc...

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vasco 7 months ago | parent [-]

https://247wallst.com/media/2024/08/04/9-biggest-video-game-...

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robertlagrant 7 months ago | parent [-]

There is certainly a difference between profit and revenue, yes.

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vasco 7 months ago | parent [-]

I guess it's easier to casually mention you might not recoup your investment when it's not your $200mil but my point it's just that there's a lot of speculative technical research or cultural output that is very hard to predict outcome, some of these things also requiring high paid labor, and we don't have a huge thing around "omg if they don't all become billionnaires selling drugs nobody will make drugs because it's so hard and expensive", meanwhile people are going to space and so on.

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robertlagrant 7 months ago | parent [-]

More people are developing drugs than going to space. And going to space is valuable and makes billionaires, because it's a super high risk, high reward industry. If you want to make it into only a high risk industry, no one is going to space.

	▲	vasco 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Of course it's valuable, I just gave you another example of a difficult industry with highly paid labor that doesn't need all the bullshit pharma needs like extra crazy patenting systems, protection from side effects and then still cry that without them there would be no drugs because the process is so expensive. You've misinterpreted every comment in this chain.