How could we not? Tons of consumers buy whatever they feel like based on effective marketing... they're not worried about consumer backlash from less than 5% of the population, which by the way, was always the hardest to market to anyway.

That's why the future, sadly, probably won't happen in the US: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?s=gongkai

The irony being that US industry bootstrapped in much the same way. Because it basically gave the middle finger to UK patents and copyright.

Looking across history the pattern seems to be that the nation rise the fastest when they ignore copyright and patents, and then stagnates as those concepts take hold and choke the economy with legalese.

For example Germany (thought not the nation we know it today) introduced the concept later than its neighbors in Europe, and this may have helped in their industrialization as science and engineering texts etc were cheap and easy to acquire.

Intellectual "property" is a form of turf war, and the same pattern applies.

First the "pioneering" phase, aka land grabbing, then the walled gardens.

I know so many people buying the new iPhone only because "my iPhone 6 is having so many problems"

7 versions into the iPhone series and these people still don't see history repeating itself every year or two.