If everyone is use existing solution, who would build a new one? NIH is a plague and a gift — people betting huge resources in attempt to create something better than existing. Most of the time they fails. Rarely they succeed, and than next generation is asked to ‘stay on their shoulders’.

NIH is like going to travel to discover better life. You may fail and die or spend rest of life in poverty, but sometimes you succeed and give a life to a new nation (or planet-scale population).