Secondly, you have accurately described the patent system;
> if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone can benefit from the increase in knowledge.
But you go off the rails when you confuse simple and known. The point of a patent is to disclose the invention in a clear enough way for someone else to be ablwe to perform it. Once you know the answer, it probably will seem simple. But that does not mean it's not inventive (ie, no one else has done it before, and you qwere the first to have made that knowledge available to the public).
You aren't eligible for a patent just because you did something first.
To take a silly example, let's say I propose a patent on the process of painting a house green. That's the entire text of the patent. Should it be granted? No. In part because I haven't fully disclosed the invention. But what could I possibly add? "Step 1. Cover house with green paint."
A government granted monopoly is a big gun. Far too big if the goal is just to provide you with revenue. Government works for the people, not one company, and if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone can benefit from the increase in knowledge. If your "invention" is so simple that we all already know how to do it, then we don't need the "full disclosure" of a patent, and we don't need to buy your description of painting the house green for the enormous cost of having to pay you exhorbitant fees for every green house for the next two decades.