When most of the great companies of the industrial era were founded, even the most brilliant economists believed deeply in the law of diminishing marginal returns. At its core, the principle means that the more of something that is made, the less valuable each incremental unit of that something becomes. If there were one pound of chocolate in the entire world, only the wealthiest individuals could afford to taste its unique flavor. If our oceans suddenly turned to chocolate, the incremental value of that volume would plummet — we’d truly have more chocolate than we really needed. The law of diminishing marginal returns held firm throughout the industrial era. The more of something we made, the less valuable it was to each incremental user down the demand curve.