>>14122254According to conventional wisdom, people in the United States and elsewhere are supposed to be able to monetize their ideas. The way our system now works, it takes an incredible amount of startup money to accomplish this and the 1995 patent reform made it so that people couldn't patent abstract ideas. In today's environment, Tesla would not have been able to patent Alternating Current and sell it because is it "too abstract."
People IRL do not understand why I have trouble. I'm good looking, clearly bright, and the question I get most often in conversations that go for more than 3 minutes is, "WHY DIDN'T YOU GO TO COLLEGE?!?" and it annoys me to no end.
The movie American Pie was one reason, and a lack of money was the other.