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It's not that it costs too much money, in many cases. The money's there. The problem is that the solution is not profitable compared to other actions, which is a different thing entirely.

For example, it is much more profitable to sell recurring treatments than it is to sell cures. You can only sell a cure once per instance of disease, after all, whereas selling a recurring treatment means you have an indefinite stream of revenue. (Similar logic applies to selling software as a subscription instead of as a one-off license.)

When something is "not profitable", that does not mean it costs too much. It means that the thing is not as profitable as other options, which is sometimes a result of excessively costly processes, but is at other times a result of having "do nothing" as an option (which by definition costs nothing, and depending on the field can make quite a lot of money).

Another example of something being "not profitable", but not because it costs more, is public goods. Public transportation, for instance. It is undeniable that good public transportation is a boon to society, but public transport is often framed as a business rather than a public good, and in the context of a business, public transport is simply not as profitable as something like a toll road. Running a toll road is close to "do nothing" compared to running a bus line or train line, since everyone brings their own car instead of using the publicly-provided transportation. The catch is, this is actually MORE costly overall--because many more vehicles have to be fueled and maintained, and cars are relatively inefficient compared to trains. But, because the cost is distributed to the users of the road, the toll road is "cheaper" for the people operating it, and thus more profitable--so if you run government like a business, the toll road is the thing you go with.



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