Ironically, most technology is the opposite. At least when you're designing and developing things, it's all individuals - you can have assistants or small teams, but institutions don't invent new things, individuals do.

I don't mean that pedantically, I mean one or two people were the driving force behind near every innovation. A company can sit those people in a room and fund them for a decade, but you have to keep them happy and leave them alone - if they leave or they're meddled with too much, you're back to square one

Big companies can't innovate (except in monetization)... It's all done by start ups now. Then they get acquired, and all progress halts

Just makes me think, in science (or academia at least) researchers are tied to their research to maintain their position, rather than their position deciding their research. It's still a pretty broken system, but between that and the incentive for open collaboration it just makes me think. If every piece of technology was open sourced, if everyone from phone manufacturers to game designers existed in a world where designs could be improved upon, where would we be now?