[computably]

> Without profit as a motive, innovation would be decades behind (if not longer than this). Governments can barely afford crumbling infrastructure maintenance as it is. I seriously doubt they are going to invest in projects for the 'greater good'.

The reason that governments have such a restrictive budget in the first place is people are individually profit-motivated. Governments do invest in projects for the greater good - you yourself note "big pharma" research, and in fact historically the US gov provided more than half the funding of all basic research nationally.

> Yes, for defensive or offensive military purposes. Not much beyond this.

Shinkansen.

Anyways, governments across the world are driven by incentives that do recognize long-term economic/strategic interests. You can see it with AI, with climate change, even with the broad desire to create a "homegrown" Silicon Valley.

[elevation]

> The reason that governments have such a restrictive budget in the first place is people are individually profit-motivated

You've got the cart before the horse; the government would not have a budget at all if people were not individually motivated to generate taxable events.

Profit is the practice of accumulating more resources than you immediately need in the anticipation of their future use and enjoyment. Without a government, a profit makes the bearer a target for anyone who can overpower you. So the essential purpose of a government is the preservation of profit by opposing the forces that would destroy or carry it off: criminals, scammers, foreign militaries.

Governments did not command the invention of penicillin, powered flight, electric light, transistors, the blue LED, or the majority of software products that are essential to society today. But it protected individuals to invent with the knowledge that their work could be rewarded on some timeframe rather than being immediately destroyed by an interloper.

[y0eswddl]

Maybe not government, but much public resource was not driven by profit.

The entire software industry relies on a foundation of free and open source software. The profit model wouldn't even exist without the work of people who do it purely for passion.

Penicillin was university research and given away freely.

The Wright brothers weren't trying to start an airline, that just wanted to fly.

ironically, tho not recently government, the majority of your examples were not discovered/created in the pursuit of profits.