>I would question why they haven't attracted investment in such a situation.
I wouldn't say there isn't investment in new industries/tech upstream, but that it isn't in anything at a point that's driving consumer demand/profits.
>To put it more directly, what do you know that people with billions to invest, and access the experts in the field don't?
I'm interested in brain computer interfaces (worked/consulted in multiple research labs, published in journals, familiarity with all the politicking in between academia-industry/etc). I have hands on experience with medical imaging hardware/software and design of systems/sensors, and have seen a couple of great but really expensive systems/companies only target researchers, and many more trash systems/companies with even more funding that continued to get peddled to the public (and research labs sadly), and the only VC firm I've seen that even seems right up the ally with interest in something like this (some of the people behind it), nearly 15-20% of their portfolio companies are filled with corporate hiring startups (and another chuck companies with gov contracts for bread n butter [i.e. easily financed with 4-52 week notes]).
If one follows Robin Hanson's take on our economic system (prestige bias wrt to experts, and how it can go horribly wrong in certain cases outside of wanting to associate with such people), its not hard to see how $10-100 billion or more of other peoples money mostly being burned…