For years top car manufacturers VW, BMW, and Daimler worked together to reduce innovation, and offered less value to customers and damaged the environment. On 8 July 2021 the European Commission fined VW and BMW a total of 875 billion EUR. Daimler was protected from the penalty as a whistleblower. This anti-innovation scandal came just after the Exxon scandal.
Theoretically it was always clear that the largest companies prefer to maintain status quo and fight against innovation. Practically it is only recently that these strategies are exposed and criticized. This new fight against anti-innovation is motivated by digitalization which increases transparency and sustainability which pressures all companies to change.
Innovation is an essential element of civilization and it is immoral to restrict access to it. Restricting innovation is equal to restricting water and shelter. I really do hope that people at VW, BMW, Daimler, and Exxon, understand the greater value of innovation and will now work to promote it. Otherwise, much more than their companies will be damaged. If big companies which control majority of global markets restrict change, we will not go very far.
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