Tbf, it's not like this approach can't work at all. Airbus was born out of a similar dynamic, and it's giving Boeing a run for its money now. Afaik France has a couple of other giants in technology-heavy industries such as shipping or mining, but I couldn't speak to their success. What seems clear by now, though, is that the approach isn't suitable for "tech" (in the typical SV sense of the word), especially consumer-centric.
Airbus was a company setup by consolidating companies controlled by some of the most powerful countries in the world, which sold planes to captive state airlines and militaries controlled by those same governments and their allies.
>Tbf, it's not like this approach can't work at all. Airbus was born out of a similar dynamic, and it's giving Boeing a run for its money now.
It literally can't work at all. When was the last time you went and bought an Airbus? Airbus doesn't make consumer products. Passengers are the consumers flying inside them but they're not the ones buying them, it's the airlines who only have a monopoly of 2 global players to choose from in a highly regulated industry with expensive moats to enter meaning Airbus and Boeing don't really need to compete cut-throat.
Governments excel at building large infrastructure and defense companies like Airbus, Boeing, what have you, not at building consumer products at scale like Google, Apple, etc sine their success is dictated by the consumer spending preferences, not by requirements a government makes up.
Communist regimes did not make the best consumer products, the free market did.
