I suspect it's the latter, although I fail to even wrap my head around how the heck fundamental technological advances even happen. I mean you have people far removes from commercialization that pour a lot of time, money, knowledge and material into making this obscure little facet a tiiiny bit better. How do you even get to know what to improve, what needs improving, what _can_ be improved? How the heck do you even get funding for something so so very speculative?