Comment by Barrin92
>Manufacturing is an inferior way to make money
sure in the sense in which operating an airline or high speed rail network makes you less money than running an ad or porn website but the world doesn't run on money, it runs on infrastructure. I believe we have a term for civilizations that value money over power, we call them decadent.
If you're content living in Mark Zuckerberg's slop metaverse that's a possible route to go down but it's important to understand that the world will belong to countries that focus on what powers that entertainment dystopia, and the US has some competitors who have the good sense to understand that the material world matters.
> operating an airline or high speed rail network makes you less money than running an ad or porn website
Airlines and high speed rail systems are also services. Heck, even Tesla's real value isn't in manufacturing, it's in the (delusional, but nonetheless) belief that they're going to make an absolute killing on services at some point in the future. They could probably sell off their manufacturing arm and their stock price would increase.