Right I think we all understand the idea here, its not a misunderstanding. I just think people, reasonably, don't actually see the mechanism working.

It's weird to lump ever other possible idea in one category. These are complex issues with ever changing contexts. The surface of the problem is huge! Surely with anything else we wouldn't be so tunnel visioned, we wouldn't just say: "well we simply _must_ discount everything else, so we can only be happy with what we got." It would literally sound absurd in any other context, but because we are trained to politicize thinking outside of market mechanisms, we see very smart people saying ridiculous things!

Not at all? It's reasonable to point out issues with the implementation as it currently stands (those are abundant and blindingly obvious). However it is also clear that the underlying mechanism works extremely well. A claim to the contrary is quite extraordinary.

Sometimes people do talk about alternatives. State funding and patronage are two of the most common. Both have very obvious drawbacks in terms of quantity and who gets influence over the outcome. Both also have interesting advantages that are well worth examining.